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ONE YEAR COURSE 

IN 

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 
LITERATURE 



AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CHIEF AUTHORS IN 

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE, WITH 

READING LISTS AND REFERENCES FOR 

FURTHER STUDY 



BY 

BENJAMIN A. HEYDRICK, A.M. 

Chairman of English Department, High School of Commerce, New 

York City; Author of "How to Study Literature," "Short 

Studies in Composition," etc. 



HINDS, NOBLE & ELDREDGE 

31-33-35 West 15TH Street, New York City 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 


Two Co Dies Received 


FEB 1 1909 


Copyrisrnt tntry 
«WSS CX- XX& No, 

w c6py a. 




Copyright, 1909, 

BY 

BENJAMIN A. HEYDR1CK. 



lij 



PREFACE 

This book is written for the purpose of providing for 
students in high schools and academies an introduction to 
the literature of their mother tongue. There are already 
a number of books on this subject : the present work will 
be found to differ from them in several respects. 

The method followed by most writers in preparing an 
elementary text-book on English literature is, apparently, 
to take a larger work and make a small one by simply 
reducing the scale. Fifty pages on Shakespeare are re- 
duced to ten, and so on. When the minor writers are 
reached, they are condensed into a line or two, with the 
result that much of the book is a mere list of names and 
titles. These dry bones the teacher is left to animate as 
best he can. 

In this work there has been no attempt to include all 
the writers who have contributed to English literature. 
There are many authors who survive only for purposes of 
post-graduate study. George Gascoigne, John Skelton, 
Roger Ascham, Ambrose Phillips, are names of signifi- 
cance to the scholar tracing the evolution of literary forms, 
but not to the beginner, who needs a guide to what is best 
in the public library. Throughout this work, then, em- 
phasis is placed upon books that still live. The nineteenth 
century in particular is treated fully; its writers may be 
no greater than those of the eighteenth, but they have 
more to say to us. 



iv PREFACE 

The mere study of a text-book, however, will give no 
one a knowledge of English literature. That must be 
gained by reading the authors themselves. To this end, 
each chapter is followed by a list of recommended reading 
in the chief authors, with references to volumes of selec- 
tions where these may be found. And since many pupils 
will now begin to form their own libraries, under each 
chief author is mentioned a standard library edition of his 
works, and inexpensive editions of single volumes. 

The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness 
to Mr. Guy M. Carleton for valuable suggestions and 
criticism. 

B. A. HEYDRICK. 

New York, January, 1909. 



CONTENTS 

I. ENGLISH LITERATURE 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Beginning of English Literature . . . i 
Beowulf — Caedmon — Bede — Alfred. 

II. Chaucer and his Contemporaries ... 9 

Chaucer — Wiclif — Mandeville. 

III. The Fifteenth Century 15 

Ballad Poetry — Early Drama — Malory. 

IV. The Elizabethan Age 21 

Spenser — Marlowe — Shakespeare — Jonson — Bacon. 

V. The Puritan and Restoration Periods ... 34 
Milton — Bunyan — Herrick — Dryden. 

VI. The Classical Age 46 

Swift — Addison — Steele — Pope — Defoe — Richard- 
son — Fielding. 

VII. The Age of Johnson 56 

Johnson — Goldsmith — Burke — Gibbon — Thomson 

— Gray. 

VIII. The Age of Romanticism 66 

Burns — Coleridge — Wordsworth — Scott — Byron — 
Shelley — Keats — Lamb — De Quincey. 

IX. The Victorian Era 90 

Tennyson — Browning — Macaulay — Carlyle — Ruskin 

— Dickens — Thackeray — Eliot — Stevenson. 



VI CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Quotations for Memorizing 119 

List of Books referred to 142 



II. AMERICAN LITERATURE 
PART I. THE PERIOD OF BEGINNINGS, 1608-1809 

CHAPTER 

I. The Colonial Writers 145 

Smith — Mather — Edwards. 

II. The Revolutionary Writers 150 

Henry — Jefferson — Hamilton — Freneau — Franklin. 

PART II. THE PERIOD OF ACHIEVEMENT, 1809-1870 

III. The Knickerbocker School 156 

Irving — Cooper — Bryant. 

IV. The New England Group — Poets and Essayists . 167 

Emerson — Longfellow — Whittier — Lowell — Holmes 

— Thoreau. 

V. The New England Group — Orators, Novelists, 

and Historians 192 

Webster — Hawthorne — Stowe — Bancroft — Prescott 

— Parkman — Motley. 

VI. Early Southern Writers . . . . . 209 

Simms — Poe — Hayne — Timrod. 

VII. Writers of the Middle States . . . .218 
Taylor — Whitman — Stoddard — Curtis. 

PART III. RECENT PERIOD, 1870-1908 

VIII. New England since 1870 228 

Stedman — Aldrich — Hale — Warner — Fiske. 

IX. The New South 237 

Lanier — Cable — Harris — Page — Allen- 



CONTENTS vil 

CHAPTER PAGE 

X. Recent Writers of the Middle States . . . 244 
Burroughs — Howells — James — Crawford — Stockton. 

XI. The Rise of Western Literature .... 252 
Harte — Clemens — Eggleston — Field — Riley. 

Quotations for Memorizing 262 

List of Books referred to 278 

Index 279 



INTRODUCTION 

If one were asked to name the chief writers in American 
literature, one would probably think first of Longfellow, 
Whittier, Emerson, and Lowell. A little more reflection 
would suggest Poe, Bryant, Hawthorne, Cooper, Irving, 
Franklin, and Holmes. These are the writers who stand 
foremost in our literature, and, with the exception of 
Franklin, they all belong to a single period. The sixty 
years from 1809 to 1869 saw the chief work of these 
authors. This may be called the Period of Achievement 
in American literature. The earlier period, which includes 
the writings of Franklin and of the Revolutionary orators, 
we may call the Period of Beginnings. And the period 
since 1870, including authors now living, we may call the 
Recent Period. So our literary history divides itself 
naturally into three periods, which will be treated in the 
three parts of this book. 

Acknowledgment is hereby made of the permission 
granted by Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company to use 
extracts from copyrighted poems by J. G. Whittier, O. W. 
Holmes, and E. R. Sill ; to Messrs. Charles Scribner's 
Sons for selections from R. H. Stoddard; to Little, Brown, 
and Co. for selections from Emily Dickinson ; to Horace 
Traubel for selections from Walt Whitman ; and to James 
Whitcomb Riley for selections from his own writings. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 

CHAPTER I 
THE BEGINNING OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 

Beowulf Bede 

Ccedmou King Alfred 

The beginning of English literature goes back to the 
beginning of the English race. The people we call Eng- 
lish had their first home not in England at all, but on the 
shores of the North Sea, on the peninsula of Jutland and 
in that part of Germany now known as Schleswig-Holstein. 
These people came to England in great numbers in the 
fifth and sixth centuries, and conquering the original inhab- 
itants, established the Anglo-Saxon nation, as it was called. 
They brought with them their literature, in the Anglo- 
Saxon language. A great part of this literature has been 
lost. Of that which survives, the most noted work is an 
epic poem called Beowulf (Bay'o-wulf). 

This poem begins by telling how Hrothgar, a Danish 
king, built a splendid mead-hall where he and his warriors 
might feast after fighting. A supernatural monster called 
Grendel, hearing the sound of minstrelsy, comes to the 
hall by night and slays thirty of the warriors while they 
sleep. Again and again he comes to the hall ; his strength 
is so great that no bars can keep him out ; he bears a 
charmed life, so no sword can wound him. So the hall 
stands deserted, and King Hrothgar in despair sends for 



2 THE BEGINNING OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 

Beowulf, a prince of a neighboring land, to come to his 
aid. Beowulf comes with twelve companions, and is enter- 
tained in the hall with feasting and song. That night 
Grendel comes again, seizes one of the sleeping warriors, 
drinks his blood, and devours him even to his hands and 
feet. Then he attacks Beowulf, and a fearful struggle 
ensues. Beowulf, who had the strength of thirty men, 
seized Grendel by the arm ; the monster struggled to 
escape ; his frightful cries filled the hall ; at last he fairly 
wrenched his arm out of its socket and rushed away to die 
in his lair. Then there is great joy, a feast is held, and 
rich presents are given to the hero Beowulf. But that 
very night the mother of Grendel, a frightful monster, 
comes to take vengeance, and seizing one of the compan- 
ions of Beowulf, bears him away to her den. In the morn- 
ing Beowulf and his fellows follow the trail of the mon- 
ster and come at last to a dark stagnant water beneath the 
cliffs. Beowulf boldly plunges in and finds the monster 
in a cave beneath the water. He grapples with her, and 
the water is churned up by their struggle. In spite of his 
great strength, Beowulf is slowly overcome by the monster 
and forced to the floor of the cave. Reaching out desper- 
ately, his hand grasps a sword lying on the ground ; it 
chances to be an enchanted sword, and with it he kills the 
monster. He returns to the mead-hall with the heads of 
the two creatures ; their blood is so poisonous that it melts 
the blade of the sword with which the heads are severed. 

Beowulf goes back to his own land laden with gifts, and 
rules there for many years. When he is an old man, his 
country is menaced by a great danger. A dragon, breath- 
ing fire, flies by night over the land, seizing people and 
setting fire to dwellings. Beowulf, old as he is, goes forth 
to slay the dragon, accompanied by his bravest followers. 



BEOWULF, CEDMON 3 

As they approach the cave they see skeletons lying all 
about; the sight is so terrifying that all of his followers 
except one turn and flee. The hero attacks the dragon 
single-handed ; a mighty combat follows in which Beowulf 
slays his enemy, but is himself mortally wounded. His 
followers bring forth the hoard of gold and jewels the 
dragon had guarded, and Beowulf gives thanks that he 
has won them for his people. He dies, and in his honor 
a lofty mound is built, which may be seen by passing ships; 
this as a memorial to the king who was " mildest to his 
men, and most bent upon glory." 

The poem is typical of the race which produced it. 
Stern fighters, loyal friends, brave in the face of danger, 
desiring honor more than they feared death, the Anglo- 
Saxons gave to the English race the iron in the blood 
which has made them a conquering people. 

Beowulf can hardly be regarded as the first English 
poem, since it was written on the mainland, probably in the 
sixth century. The oldest English poem of which we have 
any record is called Widsith, or the Far- Wanderer. This 
tells of the wanderings of a poet in many lands, how he 
was received with honor at the courts of kings, and how 
in return he sang of their deeds and so gave fame to 
them. The poem is of interest as showing the position 
of the poet, or Scop, as he was called, among the Anglo- 
Saxon peoples. 

More important than Widsith is the work of Caedmon, a 
Northumbrian monk of the eighth century. The Anglo- 
Saxons had been converted to Christianity by missionaries 
from Rome and from Ireland. Monasteries were estab- 
lished in many places, and these were the centers of learn- 
ing as well as of religious influence. At the monastery of 
Whitby, in Northumbria, lived the poet Caedmon. His 



4 THE BEGINNING OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 

story is told by the historian Bede. It was the custom of 
the time at banquets, after the feasting was concluded, to 
pass the harp from one to another, and the guests would 
play and sing, often improvising the words. Caedmon was 
an unlearned man, and when he saw the harp approaching 
him, he slipped out from the hall and went to the cattle 
sheds. There he fell asleep, and in a vision the Lord ap- 
peared to him and said, " Caedmon, sing something for me." 
He replied, " Lord, I cannot sing, and for that reason I left 
the banquet for shame when I saw the harp approaching." 
Then the Lord said, " Nevertheless, sing for me." — " What 
shall I sing ? " — " Sing of the Creation." Then he began 
and sang of the Creation, and of the beginning of mankind. 
When he awoke he remembered the poem, and repeated it. 
The monks heard it with astonishment, and took him before 
the abbess. She bade the scholars tell him more of the 
Bible history, and he turned this into poetry as before. In 
this way he composed his great work, the Paraphrase of 
the Scriptures. It includes the books of Genesis, Exodus, 
and parts of Daniel. Caedmon did more than merely put 
into verse the Biblical narratives : there are many places 
where from his own imagination he adds descriptions and 
incidents that are highly poetic. In some passages there 
is a close resemblance between Caedmon's Paraphrase and 
Milton's Paradise Lost, and it is probable that Milton was 
influenced by this early poet. 

The great names in Anglo-Saxon poetry, then, are 
Beowulf and Caedmon ; in prose they are Bede and King 
Alfred. Bede was a learned monk of the monastery at 
Jarrow, in Northumberland; his most noted work is the 
Ecclesiastical History of England, in which the story of 
Caedmon appears. This work was originally written in 
Latin, which was then the language usually used for 



BEDE, KING ALERED 5 

learned works. He wrote in Anglo-Saxon a translation 
of St. John's Gospel. This was the last work of his life, 
and as it progressed he grew weaker, so that it was 
necessary to have one of his pupils write as he dictated. 
On the last day of his life the pupil who was writing for 
him said, " Master, there is still one chapter wanting : 
does it trouble you to be asked questions ? " — " It is no 
trouble, my son ; take your pen and write quickly." At 
evening the boy said, " Dear master, there is yet one 
sentence unwritten." — " Write it quickly," he said. Soon 
the boy said, "It is finished." He replied, "You have 
spoken the truth, it is finished," and with a psalm upon 
his lips he passed away. 

Bede was our first English historian ; King Alfred 
(849-901), better known as Alfred the Great, was the first 
great English educator. When he came to the throne he 
saw with regret that, owing to the destruction of many 
monasteries by the Danes, learning was fast dying out. 
The common people knew no Latin, many of the priests 
were ignorant, and all the learning of the time was in the 
Latin tongue. To remedy this, Alfred had many books 
translated into Anglo-Saxon, and himself aided in the 
translations. In this way books on geography, history, 
philosophy, and theology were made accessible to the 
common people. Bede's Ecclesiastical History was one 
of the books translated. Under Alfred, too, a great 
advance was made in recording the history of the time. 
For many years a record had been kept, now known as 
the Saxon Chronicle. This, however, was brief and frag- 
mentary ; a year's history was compressed into a single 
line. Under Alfred's direction it became a full and 
spirited narrative, and it remains one of the great monu- 
ments of Anglo-Saxon prose. 



6 THE BEGINNING OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 

It may be well to give here some idea of the Anglo- 
Saxon language, or Old English as it is sometimes called. 
The following lines are from Beowulf : 

Beowulf wses breme, blaed wide sprang, 
Scyldes eafera, Scede-landum in. 1 

This is not much like modern English. Not only are 
many of the words strange to us, but the grammatical 
structure is different. In the second line the word Scyldes 
is in the genitive case, while landum is a dative. Anglo- 
Saxon was like Latin or German in using various endings 
of a word to express relations which English expresses 
by prepositions, as shown in the translation. 

How was this strange speech transformed into the 
English that we know? This was accomplished through 
the Norman Conquest. William of Normandy and his 
followers, who conquered the Anglo-Saxons in 1066, fol- 
lowed the example of the earlier invaders and settled in the 
country they had won. Like the Saxons, too, they brought 
with them their language and literature, and tried to make 
it the language of the land. Norman French was spoken 
at court, it was taught in schools, it was the language of 
the law courts, and of the ruling class as a whole. But 
the conquered Saxons clung stubbornly to their own speech, 
and for two hundred years after the Conquest, Anglo-Saxon 
continued to be spoken and written side by side with 
French. But the Saxon was obliged to learn some French 
words, and the Norman to learn some English, so gradually 
a new language grew up, a blending of the two. It had 
many Saxon words, but it had lost nearly all the Saxon 
grammatical endings; it had many French words, but these 

1 Beowulf was famous, his renown spread wide, 
The son of Scyld, in Scandinavia land. 



READING FOR CHAPTER I 7 

were often altered in form or in pronunciation ; this lan- 
guage, made in the mouth, so to speak, was modern English. 
It took from the Saxon most names of common things, such 
as man, house, wagon, stone; from the French it took words 
expressing ideas which Norman civilization had introduced, 
such as castle, chivalry, courtesy; and many law terms, such 
as damage, trespass, counsel, prisoner. Often both the 
Saxon and the Norman name survived, as "house" and 
"mansion," "king" and "monarch," "room" and "apart- 
ment," "ask" and "inquire," so that the English language 
is particularly rich in synonyms, and has a larger vocabulary 
than any other language, ancient or modern. A further 
result of this blending of two languages was to give to 
English both the rugged strength of Saxon and some of 
the grace and polish of French. By the close of the four- 
teenth century the new language had been formed, it had 
become established as the language of the schools, of the 
law courts, and of the universities. It was a fit instrument 
for a great writer, and in Geoffrey Chaucer that writer was 
found. 

READING FOR CHAPTER I 

Beowulf has been translated by various authors. Verse translations 
are by J. M. Garnett (Ginn), J. L. Hall (Heath). Prose translations 
by C. B. Tinker (Newson), J. Earle (Clarendon Press), C. G. Child 
(Houghton), J. R. C. Hall (Macmillan). Selections are given in S. 
Brooke's Early English Literature (Macmillan). 

Caedmon's Paraphrase is most accessible in S. H. Gurteen's Epic of 
the Fall of Man (Putnam). Extended selections are given in S. 
Brooke's Early English Literature (Macmillan). 

Selections from Anglo-Saxon poetry are also found in Longfellow's 
Poets and Poetry of Europe (Houghton) and Morley's English Writers, 
vol. ii (Cassell). 

Fuller treatment of the writers in this period may be found in B. Ten 
Brink's Early English Literature (Holt), S. Brooke's Early English 



8 THE BEGINNING OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 

Literature (Macmillan), H. Morley's English Writers, vols, i and ii 
(Cassell) . Garnett and Gosse's History of English Literature, vol. i 
(Macmillan), gives facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts with quaint 
illustrations. 

For changes in the language, see T. R. Lounsbury's History of 
the English Language (Holt) or O. F. Emerson's English Language 
(Macmillan). 



CHAPTER II 



CHAUCER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 

Geoffrey Chaucer John Wiclif 
Sir John de Mandeville 

The first great writer of the Anglo-Saxon period was a 
poet ; the first great writer in modern English was also 
a poet. 

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 
London about 1340. His father 
was a wine merchant who had 
supplied the court, and Chaucer 
as a boy became a court page. 
He went to France with the 
royal army, was captured, ran- 
somed, returned to England, and 
received a new court position ; 
was sent to Italy and other 
countries on state business, mar- 
ried a lady of the court, was 
made controller of customs at 
the port of London, became a member of Parliament, and 
after a full and successful life died in London in 1400. 
He is remembered, however, not as the successful man 
of affairs but as the first great English poet. In his early 
life at court he learned French and became familiar with 
the Norman-French literature of the time. This consisted 
chiefly of long narrative poems telling the adventures and 

9 




GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



10 CHAUCER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 

exploits of famous heroes. Some of these poems were 
based upon the story of the siege of Troy, others told of 
Alexander the Great, others of Charlemagne and his 
Twelve Peers, others of King Arthur and his Knights of 
the Round Table. Then there were many short poems 
dealing with love and chivalry, some of which Chaucer 
imitated in his earliest writings. When he went to Italy 
he learned to know another of the great literatures of the 
world. The poetry of Dante, of Petrarch, of Boccaccio, 
opened a new world to him ; he read with delight, and 
under the influence of Italian writers he wrote a long nar- 
rative poem called Troilns and Cressida. In later life, how- 
ever, he turned from French and Italian models and wrote 
his most original and greatest work, the Canterbury Tales. 
The plan of the book is as follows : a company of pil- 
grims set out from London to journey to the tomb of 
Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. The poet represents 
himself as meeting this company at the Tabard Inn, in 
Southwark, a suburb of London. The host of the Tabard 
is so much pleased with the company chat he offers to 
ride with them, and proposes that, to make the journey 
pleasanter, each person in the company shall tell four 
stories, two going and two returning, and upon their re- 
turn the one who has told the best tale shall have a supper 
at the others' cost. This is agreed to, and the pilgrims 
ride forth. They are a diverse company: there is a knight, 
a farmer, a lawyer, a merchant, a monk, a parson, a par- 
doner, a student of Oxford, a miller, a weaver, a nun, a 
wife — twenty-nine in all, drawn from various classes of 
society. Each one tells a tale according to his nature. 
The Knight's tale is one of love and chivalry, the Prioress 
tells of the sufferings of one persecuted for his faith, the 
Miller has a coarse tale, the Parson preaches a sermon. 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER II 

The tales are so well told that they rank among the best 
in English literature. 

One of the shorter tales is that of the Pardoner, or seller 
of indulgences. He tells us that in Flanders there was 
once a company of young men who were given to drinking 
and gambling. One day as three of them sat drinking in 
a tavern, a corpse was carried past. They sent to inquire, 
and learned that it was a former companion of theirs, who 
had fallen in a pestilence, in which Death had claimed 
many victims. In their anger they take an oath to find out 
Death and slay him. They go forth from the tavern and 
presently meet an old man whom they greet roughly and 
demand that he show them where Death is. He replies 
that he had seen him in a field near by, sitting under a 
tree. They hasten there, and find a great heap of money, 
newly coined, at which they rejoice greatly. Finally one 
of them suggests that if they are found with their treasure 
they will be taken for thieves, so he proposes that two of 
them shall remain there to guard it, while the third goes to 
the town and brings a strong sack in which they may carry 
away the treasure by night, also some wine to cheer them 
at their work. Accordingly they draw lots to see which 
shall go, and the youngest is sent to town. As soon as he 
has gone, the one who proposed the plan tells his comrade 
that if it could only be managed that they two could divide 
the whole treasure between them, they could live in mirth 
all their lives. The other agrees to this, and the first then 
unfolds his plan. When the young man returns with the 
wine, one of his comrades is to wrestle with him in sport, 
and while his arms are upraised, the other is to stab him in 
the side. Then they will bury his body and make off with 
the treasure. This is agreed upon. Meanwhile the young 
man had been turning over in his mind the beauty of the 



12 CHAUCER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 

coins, and wishing that he might have them all for himself. 
So the Evil One suggests a means of accomplishing this. 
When he reaches the town he buys food and drink — three 
bottles of wine. Then he goes to an apothecary and asks 
for some poison, saying he wishes to kill some rats. He 
puts poison into two of the bottles, keeping the third sweet 
for his drinking. Then he hastens back to his comrades. 
They stab him as they had planned, then they sit down to 
drink, and opening the poisoned wine, drink of it, and die 
in great agony. So the tale ends. The Pardoner goes on 
to make the application of it, saying that it was the sin of 
avarice that brought these men to their death, and urges 
his hearers not to be avaricious, but to give freely to 
religious men like himself. 

The Canterbury Tales, besides its merits as a work of 
literature, is highly valuable as a picture of English life of 
the period. Chaucer's busy career had made him familiar 
with his countrymen, both of high and low degree, and in 
the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, where he describes 
the pilgrims, he draws a series of portraits that is un- 
matched in English literature. We are told the stature 
of the pilgrims, their dress, their complexion, the very 
ornaments they wore; we learn of their business and how 
they managed it; we see the poor parson who served a 
widely-scattered congregation faithfully, the jolly monk 
who was fonder of hunting than of praying, the lawyer 
always full of business, "and yet he seemed busier than 
he was," the Oxford student in his threadbare cloak, who 
spent all his money for books — all of these are typical 
characters, and drawn with such art that they live for us 
to-day. 

Chaucer is the great name in English poetry of the four- 
teenth century; the title "father of English poetry" is his 



WICLIF, DE MANDEVILLE 1 3 

without dispute. There were other English poets in his 
time but none who approached him in genius, and as the 
plan of this book excludes those writers who are of little 
or no importance to-day, it is not necessary to dwell upon 
other poetical productions. 

In prose, the chief names in this period are Wiclif and 
Sir John de Mandeville. John Wiclif was a monk and a 
reformer. He wrote a number of pamphlets attacking the 
corruption that had grown up in the church, and in order 
that the common people might have a guide of their own 
in religious affairs he planned to have the Bible translated 
into English. Up to this time the only versions had been 
in Greek and Latin, which few but the priests could read. 
This translation was completed about 1380, Wiclif him- 
self writing the New Testament and other scholars the 
Old. 

The other famous prose writer of the period, Sir John 
de Mandeville, was really a Frenchman, but his work was 
early translated into English, and its great popularity in 
England justifies its classification among English books. 
This was the Voyages and Travels of Sir John de Mande- 
ville. The author represents himself as one who has 
traveled in Eastern countries and seen many marvelous 
things. He tells us that the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel are 
shut up between the mountains of Scythia, and in the last 
day they shall be released. He says that in Africa there 
is a race of people who have but one foot, yet they can 
run very swiftly. When they are tired, they lie down and 
shelter themselves from the sun with their feet, which are 
so large that they shade the whole body. Part of this book 
appears to be a record of real travel, part of it is taken 
from other books, and a large part from the author's im- 
agination. But the people of that day were not critical; 



14 CHAUCER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 

they were eager to hear travelers' tales, the more marvel- 
ous the better, so that the Travels was long a popular 
work. 

READING FOR CHAPTER II 

Chaucer. — From the Canterbury Tales, read the Prologue and one 
or more of the following : Pardoner's Tale, Man of Lawe's Tale, Clerk's 
Tale, Nun's Priest's Tale. 

The Canterbury Tales are published in a single volume in the Globe 1 
and Cambridge series. An inexpensive edition is the Astor. The 
chief tales, with modernized spelling, are in Everyman's Library. 
Selections are given in Ward's English Poets, vol. i, Chambers's Cy- 
clopedia of English Literature, vol. i, Warner Library, and Manly's 
English Poetry. 

Mandeville. — The Voyages and Travels are in the Library of Eng- 
lish Classics and National Library, the latter in modernized spelling. 

For fuller treatment of this period, see the references for Chap. I ; 
also, J. J. Jusserand's Literary History of the English People (Put- 
nam), W. J. Courthope's History of English Poetry (Macmillan), F. 
J. Snell, The Age of Chaucer (Macmillan), and A. W. Ward's Chaucer 
in the English Men of Letters series (Macmillan). 

1 For publisher and price of various editions, see p. 142. 



CHAPTER III 

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 

Ballad Poetry Beginnings of the Drama 
Malory s " Morte U Arthur " 

The century after the death of Chaucer has no such 
great names as the preceding period. It was a time when 
civil war after civil war swept over the nation, and this, 
together with religious persecution, left the people little 
time to think of literature. Yet some genuine literature 
was produced, and preparation was made for the great 
revival of literature which followed in the next century. 
Perhaps the most important literary productions of the 
period were the Popular Ballads. These were short nar- 
rative poems, simple in language and in meter, which grew 
up, so to speak, among the people. No author's name is 
attached to any of them. A ballad would be composed by 
some unknown singer, and repeated after him by another, 
who would perhaps add a stanza or two, and so the song 
passed through change after change until the original poem 
may have almost disappeared. Many of these poems deal 
with the adventures of Robin Hood, a popular English 
outlaw, who with his band of merry men lay in wait in 
Sherwood forest. The rich merchant or abbot who fell 
into Robin's hands had to pay well for his release ; the poor 
man was often set free with a present. The ballads tell of 
Robin Hood's skill in archery, recalling the famous chapter 
in Ivanhoe, where Robin Hood appears as Locksley. 



1 6 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 

Other ballads deal with the supernatural, telling strange 
ghost stories ; in others the story turns upon the solution 
of a riddle. Of this class a good example is the ballad of 
King John and the Bishop. The King accuses the Bishop 
of treason, and says that he must forfeit his head unless 
he can answer three questions. First, he must tell to a 
penny how much the King is worth ; second, he must tell 
how long it would take to ride around the world; and 
finally, he must tell the King's thoughts. The Bishop goes 
home sorrowful. He meets an old shepherd, who asks 
why he is sad, and finally offers to go and answer the 
questions on the appointed day. Dressed in the Bishop's 
robes, he goes to the palace. The King asks how much he 
is worth, gold crown and all ; the shepherd replies, " Our 
Lord was sold for thirty pence, and you are worth twenty- 
nine, for you are worth a penny less than He." To the 
second question, how long it would take to ride around the 
world, the shepherd replies, " You must rise with the sun, 
and ride with him, and in twenty-four hours you will go 
round the world." Then the King asks what he is think- 
ing at that moment; the shepherd, throwing off his hood, 
says, " You think I am the Bishop of Canterbury, but I am 
only his shepherd, come to beg pardon for him and for 
me." Of course the King pardons them both. 

Besides the ballad literature, we find in this period the 
beginnings of the English drama. Strange as it may 
seem, this had its origin in the church. The festivals of 
Christmas and Easter were observed with great ceremony 
in the Roman Catholic church. At Christmas they had 
a representation of the coming of the Three Wise Men, 
led by the star ; on Good Friday the monks would bury 
the crucifix in a tomb, and take it out on Easter morning, 
with monks or choir boys impersonating the three Marys 



BEGINNINGS OF THE DRAMA I 7 

and the angel at the tomb. These representations grew 
so popular that it was necessary to hold them in the 
churchyard. Other scenes from Bible history were repre- 
sented, and as these grew more like plays they passed out 
of the hands of the monks and were given by the guilds, 
or trades unions of the town. 

These plays, called Mystery Plays, were given annually 
at many towns in England. As yet there were no thea- 
ters, so the various scenes were acted on huge platforms 
or floats drawn through the streets. The spectators assem- 
bled at various places in the town where the pageant was 
to pass. First appeared a float on which the Creation of 
Eve and' the Fall of Man was represented. Adam lay 
sleeping, dressed in flesh-colored garments. The Creator 
approaches him, touches his side, Eve rises through a trap- 
door, and Adam wakes, rejoicing. Then the Creator with- 
draws. The serpent appears, talks to Eve, and persuades 
her to eat the apple. Then the angels of God come with 
swords and drive the pair forth. This concludes the first 
scene ; a trumpet sounds, and the float moves forward to 
the next stopping-place, where the scene is repeated. 
Meantime a second float has been drawn in, and the actors 
have begun the scene of Noah's Flood. They do not keep 
closely to the Bible story ; Noah's wife is represented as 
unwilling to enter the ark, and a humorous dialogue 
follows. The next scene presents the Sacrifice of Isaac, 
given by the butchers' guild ; then follow the Nativity, the 
Crucifixion, and so on, until the procession closes with the 
Day of Judgment, with the Devil tossing lost souls into 
the mouth of hell. 

These plays seem very crude to us. Like the ballads, 
their authorship is unknown ; they were probably worked 
upon by many hands. 



i8 



THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 



faoer of Deuen feimetlj cctljc to fo« 

tnoit cuetp creature to come an& 

gptte a coutite of tftm tpucs tu 

jijis mjojioe/auD is in mamc 

cfamojaiipiaye. ***,^ 



There was another class of plays popular at this time 
known as Morality Plays. These, as the name implies, 
aimed to teach a moral lesson. One of the best examples 
of this class is Everyman. In the opening of this play 

God is represented as looking 
down upon the world and see- 
ing Everyman devoted to pleas- 
ure, and quite forgetting his 
Maker. So he sends his mes- 
senger, Death, to tell Everyman 
that he must make ready for a 
long journey. Everyman begs 
to have it put off, but Death 
says it may not be. Then 
Everyman asks if he must go 
alone, and Death replies that if 
he can find any one willing 
to go with him, he may have 
company. So Everyman asks 
his friend if he will do him a 
service. The friend promises 
everything ; but when he learns what is required, he re- 
fuses. Everyman then appeals to his kindred ; they will 
do anything else for him, but not this. Then he calls upon 
his wealth. Wealth replies that it is in sacks and piles, 
and may not stir. At last, in despair, he calls upon Good 
Deeds. She replies that she is so bound by his sins that 
she cannot stir. She tells him to seek Knowledge, who 
guides him to Confession and Penance. By this means 
Good Deeds is strengthened, and arises to go with Every- 
man. They set forth, accompanied by Beauty, Strength, 
Five Wits, and Knowledge. As' they approach the 
grave Beauty leaves him first, then Strength, Five Wits, 




TITLE PAGE OF "EVERYMAN 



MALORY'S MORTE D' ARTHUR 1 9 

and even Knowledge. Only Good Deeds goes with him 
on his long journey, to appear with him before God. 

This play is of a higher order than the Mystery plays ; 
the Morality plays were usually written by monks, who, 
perceiving the newly awakened interest in the drama, em- 
ployed it as a means of moral and religious teaching. 
The Mystery and Morality plays accustomed the people 
to dramatic representations, trained many in the art of 
acting, and so prepared the way for the great develop- 
ment of the drama in the next century. 

An important event in this period was the introduction 
of printing. In 1476 William Caxton, an Englishman who 
had learned the art of printing in Flanders, returned and 
set up a press in London. He published a long list of 
books, including the works of Chaucer and many transla- 
tions from Latin and French authors. 

One of the most important of Caxton's publications was 
the Morte U Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory. This dealt 
with the history of King Arthur and his Knights of the 
Round Table. For many years legends had been told 
about King Arthur, and, as usual with such tales, they 
grew as they passed from one to another of the narrators ; 
the account of the mysterious birth of Arthur was added 
by one, the legend of the Holy Grail by another. The 
stories had been written in Latin and in French ; Sir 
Thomas Malory first put them into English. This book 
Caxton published, he tells us, " that noble men may see 
and learn the noble acts of chivalry, the gentle and virtu- 
ous deeds that some knights used in those days, by which 
they came to honour; and how they that were vicious 
were often put to shame and rebuke." It is full of tales of 
chivalry, a treasure-house of romance from which in later 
days Tennyson drew freely for his Idylls of the King. 



20 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 



READING FOR CHAPTER III 

Ballads. — Sir Patrick Spens ; Nut-brown Maid; Chevy Chase 
(modern); Robin Hood and Guy of Gisbome ; Waly, Waly ; King 
Estmere ; Edom #' Gordon; Adam Bell ; Heir of Linne ; Fair 
Margaret. 

The best collection of ballads is G. L. Kittredge's in the Cambridge 
series. 1 Other collections are F. B. Gummere's Old English Ballads 
(Ginn), Percy' 1 s Reliques (Everyman's, and Astor ed.). Representa- 
tive ballads are in Ward, vol. i ; Chambers, vol. i ; Warner ; Oxford, 
and Manly. 

Early English Drama. — Everyman, Ralph Royster Doyster. 

Everyman is in A. W. Pollard's English Miracle Plays (Clarendon 
Press). Ralph Royster Doyster is in J. M. Manly 's Specimens of 
the pre-Shakesperian Drama (Ginn) and separately in Temple 
Dramatists. 

Malory. — From Morte D' Arthur, Bk. I, Chaps. IV-VII ; Bk. II, 
Chaps. XIV-XIX ; Bk. XIII, Chaps. I-XV ; Bk. XXI, Chaps. I-VII. 

The Morte D Arthur is in the Library of English Classics (2 vols.), 
Globe (1 vol.), Everyman's Library (2 vols.), Temple (4 vols.). Selec- 
tions in Athenaeum and Riverside Literature series. 

For fuller treatment of this period, see C. M. Gayley's Plays of Our 
Forefathers (Duffield), F. J. Snell's The Age of Transition (Macmil- 
lan), H. Morley's English Writers, vol. vii (Cassell). 

1 For publisher and price of various editions, see p. 142. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE ELIZABETHAN AGE 

Edmund Spenser William Shakespeare 

Christopher Marlowe Ben Jonson 
Sir Francis Bacon 

In the preceding chapter we have spoken of some of 
the influences that prepared the way for Elizabethan liter- 
ature. The early ballads had helped to create a taste for 
poetry among the masses of the people ; the Mystery and 
Morality plays had done the same for the drama. The in- 
vention of printing had made books much cheaper, so that 
many more people read and owned books than before. 
But these influences are not sufficient to account for the 
wonderful literary achievement of the period. The fact 
is that England at this time shared in that general intel- 
lectual awakening of Europe that is known as the Renais- 
sance, or Revival of Learning. This movement has a 
curious history. All through the Middle Ages the poetry 
of Homer, the works of Greek philosophers and drama- 
tists, had been unknown to western Europe : the very 
language was almost forgotten. In Constantinople, how- 
ever, there were Greek scholars who kept alive a knowl- 
edge of the language and who had manuscript copies of 
these great works. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 
drove these scholars to Italy. They took with them their 
precious manuscripts, and so western scholars read for the 
first time some of the greatest books in the world. The 



22 THE ELIZABETHAN AGE 

fame of the New Learning, as it was called, spread to Eng- 
land, and English scholars came to Italy to school, made 
copies of the manuscripts, and brought back to England the 
new-found treasure of Greek literature and Greek thought. 

To the quickening influence of the Revival of Learning 
was added that of the Reformation, with its assertion of 
the right of independent judgment in religious affairs. 
This movement, which entered England from Germany at 
the same time the Renaissance influence came in from 
Italy, helped to set men's minds free. The combined in- 
fluences of the Renaissance and the Reformation are seen 
in the literature of the time, and help to make the Eliza- 
bethan period perhaps the most important era in the 
whole history of English literature. 

One of the early books of this period is a collection of 
poems known as TottcVs Miscellany. These poems are 
chiefly the work of Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, 
Earl of Surrey. Wyatt and Surrey were two young men 
who had traveled in Italy. Admiring the Italian poetry 
of that time, which was far superior to the English in 
finish of style and perfection of form, they imitated the 
Italian writers in a series of songs and sonnets. In this 
book the sonnet and blank verse are used for the first time 
in English. When we remember that the sonnet has been 
a favorite form with some of our greatest poets, from 
Shakespeare to the present time, and that blank verse 
was the form in which Shakespeare's plays, Milton's 
Paradise Lost, and the greatest works of Browning and 
Tennyson were written, we see how important was the 
service rendered to English literature by these men. 

Wyatt and Surrey, however, are reformers of poetry 
rather than great poets. The first illustrious name in poetry 
in this period is that of Edmund Spenser (15 52-1 599). 



EDMUND SPENSER 



23 



Spenser was a graduate of Cambridge University, where he 
remained seven years in study. When Lord Wilton was 
sent as Deputy to Ireland in 1580, Spenser went with him 
as secretary. He obtained an estate at Kilcolman, and here 
Sir Walter Raleigh visited him. To Raleigh he read the 
opening books of The Faerie Queene, and by Raleigh's advice 
he went to London to read the poem to the Queen, hoping 
for some substantial reward. Failing in this, he returned 
to Ireland, married an Irish lass, 
and wrote a glorious marriage 
hymn in her honor. Some years 
later an insurrection broke out 
in Ireland ; Spenser's castle was 
sacked and the poet forced to 
seek refuge in England, where 
he died in poverty in 1599. 

Spenser's first work of impor- 
tance was The Shepherd's Calen- 
dar, written while he was a 
student at Cambridge. This is 
a series of twelve poems of rural 
life ; the tale of the Oak and 
the Briar, in the February Ec- 
logue, will repay reading. 

But Spenser's fame rests upon his long narrative poem, 
The Faerie Que ene. As planned, this was to contain twelve 
books. The Queen is represented as holding court for 
twelve days ; on each day some distressed person comes to 
the court for help, and a knight is sent out by the Queen 
to undertake the adventure. The encounters of these 
knights with giants, dragons, and enchanters fill the twelve 
books of the poem. So much for the story. But the 
poem is also an allegory. Each of the twelve knights 




24 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE 



typifies a certain virtue. In the first book Sir Guyon, the 
hero, represents Holiness ; the hero of the second book 
represents Temperance ; of the third book, Chastity, and 
so on. The Queen herself represents Glory in general, 

and Queen Elizabeth in par- 
ticular. Thus a double mean- 
ing runs through the poem. 
Of the twelve books which the 
poem was to contain, Spenser 
wrote only six, and part of a 
seventh. Yet the several books 
are almost complete in them- 
selves, and together they form 
one of the greatest achieve- 
ments of English poetry. They 
show the influence of Italy in 
the choice of subject and man- 
ner of treatment. The Italian 
poet Ariosto had written a long 
narrative poem, Orlando Furi- 
oso, full of giants and dwarfs 
and enchanted castles, written in musical verse. Spenser 
told a like tale, but the seriousness of the English race led 
him to introduce the allegory, and thus give his poem a moral 
significance which the other lacked. The influence of Italy 
is also seen in the delight in beauty for its own sake, which 
led him so to fill his poem with descriptive passages that it 
is like a great picture gallery. The verse form of the poem 
was Spenser's own invention, and has been known ever since 
as the Spenserian stanza. It consists of nine lines, rhym- 
ing ab ab be be c. The first eight lines have ten syllables 
each, the ninth line has twelve syllables, and this long line 
gathers up the music of the whole stanza to a noble close. 




THE RED CROSS KNIGHT 
From The Faerie Queene. 



CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE 2$ 

The two great poets of our early literature, Chaucer and 
Spenser, offer a sharp contrast. Chaucer, the energetic 
man of affairs, drew the world he saw about him, the men 
and women he met every day ; he is our first great 
realist. Spenser, in his Irish exile, created a dream world 
of wondrous beauty ; he is our great romantic poet. The 
rich music of his verse, the beauty of his descriptions, the 
wealth of his imagination, carry us with him into this 
world of dreams. Is it better, with Chaucer, to see things 
as they are, or, with Spenser, to see much more lovely 
things that never were ? Each reader has his own 
answer : it is the good fortune of English literature to 
possess a great poet of each kind. 

The great achievement of the Elizabethan age, however, 
was not in narrative but in dramatic poetry. In the 
preceding chapter we have traced the beginnings of the 
drama. The Miracle and Morality plays were gradually 
replaced by other productions. The early history of 
England was made the subject of plays which were known 
as Chronicle plays. University men, familiar with Latin 
and Greek plays, translated these and wrote others in 
imitation of the classic drama. The first regular English 
comedy was Ralph Royster Doyster, written about 1550 by 
Nicholas Udall, master of Eton school, and probably acted 
by his boys. The first regular English tragedy was 
Gorbudiic, by Sackville and Norton, about 1565. These 
plays are divided into acts and scenes, like modern plays ; 
they have a definite plot, and they are written in better 
English than the old Miracle plays. Yet they are not 
great plays ; they are remembered only because they were 
the first of their kind. 

In the work of Christopher Marlowe (1 564-1 593) we 
find the drama a new, powerful, well-developed literary 



26 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE 



form. Marlowe was a graduate of Cambridge University, 
a young, fiery spirit, who lived by his genius and died, 
slain in a brawl, before he was thirty. He left four 
great plays : Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus, The 
Jew of Malta, and Edward II. Doctor Faustus is based 
upon the old legend of a man who sells his soul to the 




FAUSTUS AND MEPHISTOPHELES 
From Marlowe's Faustus. 

devil. In return, he gains knowledge beyond all other 
men : he can summon the spirits of the dead, talk with 
Alexander of his victories, and gaze upon the beauty of 
Helen of Troy. He travels about the world, and gains 
great fame by his knowledge, but after twenty-four years 
the time of the agreement expires, and the last scene of 
the play shows Faustus alone in his tower ; a thunder- 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 2? 

storm rages without ; he prays in vain for salvation, and 
shrieks in terror as the fiend comes to carry him away. 
The play is written with great power ; it so impressed 
the German poet Goethe that he took from it the idea of 
his Faust, his greatest work. The Jew of Malta, another 
powerful tragedy, doubtless gave Shakespeare suggestions 
for his play, The Merchant of Venice ; it is interesting to 
compare Shylock with the Barabas of Marlowe. 

Marlowe was but one of a group of young men of talent 
who were writing plays at this time. John Lyly, Thomas 
Kyd, George Peele, Robert Greene, and others hold a 
place in the development of the drama, but their fame 
is eclipsed by that of their fellow-playwright Shakespeare. 

William Shakespeare (i 564-161 6) was born in the vil- 
lage of Stratford-on-Avon, in Warwickshire, probably on 
April 23, 1564; at all events he was baptized April 26. 
His father, John Shakespeare, was a man of the middle class, 
a glover by trade. Shakespeare probably attended the 
grammar school in Stratford, which corresponded roughly 
to a high school of to-day. He did not go to the univer- 
sity. At eighteen he married Ann Hathaway, a woman 
eight years older than himself. A few years later we 
find him in London, where he attached himself to the 
theater, first as a prompter, then as an actor. There was 
a great demand for new plays, and Shakespeare first 
adapted and rewrote old plays for his company, then 
began to write plays of his own. He was successful both 
as actor and author. He bought'a house and lands in Strat- 
ford, and about 1606 retired there, where he died in 16 16. 
His career, outside of his writings, presents no startling 
or unusual features. He had not much education, at 
least school education. But the education that comes 
from contact with men and things he had in full measure. 



28 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE 



As a boy in Stratford he stored his mind with images of 
country scenes, and from these memories he drew the 
thousands of exquisite touches of nature description in 
his works. He went to London as an impressionable 
youth, and there came in contact with the full current of 
English life in one of its greatest periods. In the taverns 



me ' -*3&. 

m 






m 







SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE 



he would meet men who had fought with Raleigh or sailed 
round the world with Drake, or had helped defeat the 
Spanish Armada. The court of Elizabeth drew to itself 
the nobles, poets, wits, and adventurers of the kingdom; 
this brilliant society Shakespeare saw. His own company 
often acted at court. To him kings and queens, arch- 
bishops and earls, great captains and chief justices of 
England, were not mere names in the history book, but 
a part of the life he saw and knew. And so he wrote 
historical plays of such truth and vividness that from them 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 29 

we may gain a better knowledge of England than from 
many histories. 

His works comprise thirty-seven plays, two long narra- 
tive poems, Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, and about one 
hundred and fifty sonnets. The sonnets are among the 




ANN HATHAWAY'S COTTAGE 



most perfect things of their kind in English literature. 
They deal with a poet's love for a friend and for a 
woman ; it has been conjectured that they reflect his own 
life. 

The plays may be divided into four groups, correspond- 
ing to periods in Shakespeare's dramatic development. 
In the first period, 1 588-1 594, we have old plays touched 
up by Shakespeare, such as Titus Andronicus and King 
Henry VI. His first purely original work was in comedy : 
Love's Labour s Lost and The Comedy of Errors. These are 
all apprentice work; but in the latter part of the period he 
wrote Midsummer Night 's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and 
Richard III — all before he was thirty. To the second 



3<D THE ELIZABETHAN AGE 

period, 1 595-1600, belong the most famous of the comedies : 
The Merchant of Venice, TJie Taming of the Shrew, The 
Merry Wives of Windsor, and As You Like It. Here also 
are a group of great plays from English history : Henry IV, 
Parts I and II, and Henry V. The third period, 1601-1607, 
is that of the great tragedies : Julius Ccesar, Hamlet, 
Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear. The fourth period, 
1 608-1 6 1 2, contains Cymbeline, The Tempest, and The 
Winter s Tale. The exact dates of the plays are difficult 
to determine, but the above grouping is generally accepted 
as correct. It shows us that Shakespeare, the master 
mind of all, proceeded just as other people do. He did 
not write great plays at first ; he did not write plays at all 
until as an actor he learned what was needful to make a 
good play. When he did begin, his first work was no better 
that that of other men, sometimes not so good. He had 
genius, but it had to be developed by years of study and 
practice before he wrote his masterpieces. 

And such masterpieces as they are ! Whatever demand 
we may make upon poetry, he will satisfy us. In skill- 
fully selecting from an old novel or history just the events 
that will make a capital plot ; in creating characters that 
seem as real to us as actual persons ; in the power to 
make us laugh or grieve at these imaginary people ; in 
the art of saying things so well that his words are quoted 
every day ; in the skill to put words together so musically 
that they sing themselves into our memories — in all these 
Shakespeare is the supreme poet, not only of English lit- 
erature but of the world. 

Contemporary with Shakespeare, and in the period 
immediately succeeding him, a number of dramatists pro- 
duced plays. Webster, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, 
Chapman, and others hold an honorable place. The great- 



JONSON, BACON 



3i 




est of these was Ben Jonson (i 573-1637), a friend of 
Shakespeare's, who is remembered by four great comedies : 
Every Man in His Humour, 
Volponc, The Silent Woman, 
and The Alchemist. Jonson's 
plays show great learning, but 
in genius they are inferior to 
Shakespeare's. His method was 
to conceive of characters ruled 
by some passion or whim, as in 
TJie Alchemist, the desire for 
gold ; The Silent Woman, a hor- 
ror of noise. The play is then 
built up around this character- 
istic. His plays repay reading, 
though they are no longer given 
on the stage. 

Besides its poets and drama- 
tists, the Elizabethan age produced a great prose writer, 
Francis Bacon (1 561-1626). His father was one of the 
great statesmen at Elizabeth's court. Bacon became a 
lawyer, and speedily rose in his profession until he became 
Lord Chancellor, holding the highest judicial position in 
the kingdom. He was charged with accepting bribes, re- 
moved from office, and spent the remaining years of his 
life in retirement. At this time he wrote the greatest 
philosophical and scientific works of the age. These 
books, however, were written in Latin, as was the custom 
with works of learning. In English he wrote a small book 
of Essays, to which he owes his place in literature. The 
essays are short, sometimes only a page or two; the sub- 
jects are general: Revenge, Truth, Marriage, Death. The 
style is compressed ; one pithy sentence follows another. 



JPin'^dtn/ornas 



32 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE 




As we read we seem to stand 
beside this man who had seen 
and been a part of the great 
world, and to hear his wise judg- 
ment on it all. The Essays has 
remained one of the most popu- 
lar books of its kind in the lan- 
guage, and many of its sentences 
have passed into familiar quota- 
tion. " Reading maketh a full 
man;" "The remedy is worse 
than the disease;" "Knowl- 
edge is power," — such are the 
words of Bacon. 



READING FOR CHAPTER IV 

Spenser. — Faerie Queene, Bk. I, Cantos 1-4. 

Spenser's poems are published in the Cambridge, 1 Globe, and Astor 
editions, the latter with modern spelling. Selections in Ward, vol. i; 
Warner, and Manly. 

Marlowe. — Doctor Faustus, or The Jew of Malta. 

Marlowe's plays are in the Mermaid series and Muses Library. 
Doctor Faustus is published separately in Temple Dramatists. The 
Jew of Malta is in W. R. Thayer's Best Elizabethan Plays (Ginn). 

Shakespeare. — One play from each of the following groups: 

Comedies : Merchant of Ve?iice, Midsu??imer Nighfs Drea?n, As 
You Like It, Tempest. 

Tragedies : Julius Ca?sar, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, 
Macbeth, Hamlet. 

Historical Plays : Henry V, Henry IV, Parts I and II, Richard II. 

Of the Sonnets, the following : Nos. 12, 18, 29, 30, 32, 33, 54, 55, 57, 
60. 64, 65, 66, 70, 71, 73, 87, 94, 98, 99, 104, 106, 116. 



For publisher and price of various editions, see p. 142. 



READING FOR CHAPTER IV 33 

The most complete edition for study is the Variorum (Lippincott, 
$ 4 per volume). Each play occupies a large volume, with full explana- 
tory and critical matter. For the general reader, a good edition is the 
Temple, each play in a single small volume, with brief notes. A 
cheaper edition, in paper covers, is in the National Library (no notes). 
Editions complete in one volume, in very small type, are the Cambridge 
and Globe. Everyman's Library edition (3 vols.) is without notes. 

Jonson. — One of the following : Every Man in His Humour, The 
Alchemist, Volpone. 

Jonson's plays are in the Mermaid series (3 vols.). The Alchemist 
and Every Man are published separately in Temple Dramatists. The 
Alchemist is also in W. R. Thayer's Six Elizabethan Plays (Ginn). 

Bacon. — Essays on Truth, Adversity, Revenge, Great Place, Mar- 
riage, Atheism, Dispatch, Riches, Travel, Friendship, Studies. 

Bacon's Essays are in the Library of English Classics ; also Temple, 
Everyman's, Handy Volume, and National Library. 

For fuller treatment of the authors of this period, see G. Saintsbury's 
History of Elizabethan Literature (Macmillan), A. W. Ward's His- 
tory of English Dramatic Literature (Macmillan), H. Morley's Eng- 
lish Writers, vols, ix, x. xi (Cassell), F. L. Boas's Shakespeare 
and His Predecessors (Scribner), Seccombe and Allen's Age of 
Shakespeare (Macmillan), and the lives of Spenser, Shakespeare, and 
Bacon in English Men of Letters (Macmillan). Among the best books 
on Shakespeare are, for biography : Sidney Lee's Life of Shakespeare 
(Macmillan) ; for criticism : E. Dowden's Shakespeare, His Mind and 
Art (Harper), and A. C. Bradley's Shakesperian Tragedy (Mac- 
millan) . 



CHAPTER V 



THE PURITAN AND RESTORATION PERIODS 



John Milton 
John Bunyan 



Robert Herrick 
John Dry den 



When we pass from the age of Elizabeth to that of the 
Puritans, we find, as might be expected, a change in the 

literature. The temper of any 
period is reflected more or less 
clearly in the writings of the 
time. And the age which in 
politics sent a faithless king to 
the scaffold was the age which 
in literature produced the two 
greatest religious works in our 
language, Paradise Lost and 
The Pilgrim's Progress. 

John Milton (1608- 1674) was 
the poet of the Puritan age. 
Born in London, of parents in 

<fzr£ri, [Vl'vUm^ g° od circumstances, he had 

every educational advantage the 
time afforded. As a boy he attended St. Paul's School, 
and had private tutors at home. As a young man he 
spent seven years at Christ's College, Cambridge, taking 
the degree of Master of Arts. Then he retired to his 
father's country place at Horton, near London, where he 
spent six years more in private study. To a friend who 

34 




JOHN MILTON 35 

asked him what he was doing he replied, "With God's 
help, I am preparing for immortality." He had already 
written several short poems that had won high praise, and 
believed that it was within his power to achieve greater 
things. It was customary for English gentlemen in that 
day to finish their education by foreign travel, and in 1638 
Milton went abroad. He visited France and Italy, and 
was about to go to Greece when news came of the threat- 
enings of civil war in England. He returned to his native 
land at once, thinking, as he tells us, that it was not proper 
for him to be traveling for pleasure abroad while his 
countrymen were fighting for liberty at home. His sym- 
pathies were on the side of the Parliament. He found 
means to serve the cause by writing pamphlets in its 
defense, and when the Commonwealth was established 
Milton was made Latin Secretary. It was his duty to 
translate into Latin all communications with other nations, 
and, more important, to prepare replies to the many at- 
tacks that were made in print, at home and abroad, upon 
the newly established government. For the next twenty 
years this man who had spent so long a time preparing 
to be a poet, wrote political prose. So diligently did 
he apply himself to this work that his eyes, previously 
weakened by over-study, were seriously affected. His 
physicians warned him that he must give his eyes rest 
or he would lose his sight. Just at this time a pamphlet 
appeared, written by a famous Dutch scholar, attacking 
the new government. Some one had to reply, and in all 
England there was no man so fit in scholarship and in 
zeal for the cause as Milton. He wrote a reply that 
made the Dutch scholar the laughing-stock of all Eu- 
rope, but it cost Milton his eyesight. When Cromwell's 
government was finally overthrown, Milton was for a time 



36 THE PURITAN AND RESTORATION PERIODS 

imprisoned. When he was set free, he saw his cause lost ; 
his friends exiled or dead ; himself old, poor, and blind. 
An ordinary man would have folded his hands and waited 
for the end; Milton calmly undertook the great task of 
his life, and wrote Paradise Lost. This was followed by 
another long poem, Paradise Regained, and a drama, 
Samson Agonistes. All these the blind poet was obliged 
to dictate, his daughters or friends acting as secretaries to 
read to him and write for him. 



fcif£& fa* aft tM iu^ 



jj~v%./k«*.»f dU2V««£ t^-'fJr**'* 1 *18 **~ "\ ¥* % * 






FACSIMILE OF MILTON'S DISCARDED MS. "LYCIDAS, " LINES 142-151 

Milton's poems fall naturally into two groups : the 
earlier poems, written while he was at Horton, and the 
great epics of his later life. The earlier poems include 
V Allegro and II Penseroso, companion poems containing 
exquisite descriptions of country scenes ; Comics, a masque 
or short play ; and Lycidas, an elegy upon a college friend. 
In all these the character of the poet may be traced. 
U Allegro and 77 Penseroso show his love of the beauti- 
ful, and his studious nature. Comns, a story of a lady 
who is captured by an enchanter but escapes unhurt, 
is built upon the thought that virtue will always triumph 
over evil ; it reveals the religious side of Milton's nature. 
Lycidas contains a passionate outburst against the evils of 



JOHN MILTON 37 

the church at that time, showing the zeal for righteousness 
which made Milton such an ardent defender of spiritual 
and political liberty. And when we add that these poems 
are composed with almost perfect art, it is easy to under- 
stand why they have been the delight of lovers of poetry 
for three centuries. 

Yet it is upon the poems of his later period, and upon 
Paradise Lost 'in particular, that the fame of Milton chiefly 
rests. Milton, like Caedmon before him, used the Biblical 
narrative freely, adding to it as suited his needs. The 
action of the poem takes us far back in time, even beyond 
the creation of the world, showing us Heaven before the 
fall of Lucifer. On a certain day the Almighty sum- 
mons all his hosts and announces that his Son is to rule 
in Heaven coequal with himself. This announcement 
arouses the jealousy of some of the archangels, Lucifer in 
particular, and he heads a revolt against the authority of 
the Almighty. A battle is fought; the rebel hosts are 
driven out of Heaven and fall through Chaos into the 
burning lakes of Hell. Here they take counsel what 
course to pursue. Some favor renewing the attack, others 
counsel submission. At last Beelzebub, prompted by Lu- 
cifer, reminds them of a prophecy in Heaven that a new 
world was to be created, and advises that they should seek 
this and revenge themselves upon God by doing evil to 
the new race he has created. This counsel finds favor, 
and Lucifer goes forth to seek through Chaos for the new 
world. He finds it, enters the Garden of Eden, and tempts 
Eve to her fall. The poem ends with the expulsion of 
Adam and Eve from Paradise. 

The style of the poem is worthy of its lofty theme. Mil- 
ton's studies had made him familiar with the great works of 
literature in other languages ; he had before him the 



38 



THE PURITAN AND RESTORATION PERIODS 



models of Greece and Rome, and followed them worthily. 
His learning had made him master of a rich and varied 
vocabulary and sensitive to delicate shades of meaning. 
He was gifted by nature with a musical ear ; he was a 
skilled performer on the organ, and his poetry, with its 
majestic harmonies, is like the sound of an organ in some 
great cathedral. Add to all this that Milton possessed an 
imagination that ranks him with the greatest poets of the 

world, and it is easily seen why 
Paradise Lost stands alone. It 
is the one great achievement in 
epic poetry of the English- 
speaking race. 

In marked contrast to that of 
Milton is the life and work of 
John Bunyan (i 628-1 688), the 
other great Puritan name in our 
literature. Milton was one of the 
most learned men of his time ; 
Bunyan never went beyond the 
grammar school. He was the 
son of a poor man, a tinker of 
Bedfordshire. His youth, he 
tells us, was wild, but early in 
life his conscience troubled him ; 
he saw visions and heard voices bidding him leave his 
sins. The story of his conversion he tells in a remarkable 
book called Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. He 
followed his father's trade, and as he went about the coun- 
try he preached to wayside congregations. Unlicensed 
preaching was contrary to law, and Bunyan was put into 
Bedford jail, where he remained a prisoner for twelve years. 
During this time he wrote his Pilgrim's Progress, which 




vy^cm^ 



BUNYAN, HERBERT 39 

was published in 1678. The repeal of the law against 
preaching set him free, and he resumed his exhortations 
in a chapel which was built for him at Bedford. 

The Pilgrim's Progress tells of a man who learns that 
his native city is threatened with destruction, and goes out 
to seek safety. One directs him in one way, another in 
another. He passes through narrow and dangerous paths; 
is threatened by giants and wild beasts ; but at last reaches 
a safe and happy land. Such is the main outline of the 
book. But through it all runs a double meaning : the 
wanderer's name is Christian, his fajse guide is Mr. 
Worldly-Wiseman, the true guide is Evangelist, and the 
country he finally reaches is the Celestial Country. The 
book is thus an allegory, and pictures the spiritual life of 
man. The language of the book, modeled upon that of 
the English Bible, is wonderfully direct and powerful. 
To this simplicity and strength of style Bunyan added 
narrative power of a high order. In other circumstances 
be might have been a great novelist. A third merit 
of the book is its absolute truth as a picture of spiritual 
experience. We all bear a burden, as Christian did ; 
we all fall into the Slough of Despond at times, or are 
imprisoned in the castle of Giant Despair. In reading 
the book we recognize our own experiences, and as the 
heart of man is the same in all centuries, so this won- 
derful book never loses its power. It remains the great- 
est prose allegory in our literature, and one of the great 
allegories of the world. 

Milton and Bunyan are the chief names of this period. 
There are a number of other writers, both in prose and 
verse, but our brief survey permits of the mention of only 
a few. George Herbert (1593-1633) is one of those who 
cannot be passed over. His little volume of religious 



40 



THE PURITAN AND RESTORATION PERIODS 



poems, The Temple, is full of verses of singular sweet- 
ness and charm. The quality of his work is seen in the 
following poem : 

VIRTUE 

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, 

The bridal of the earth and sky, 
Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night, 

For thou must die. 

Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, 

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, 
Thy root is ever in its grave 

And thou must die. 

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, 

A box where sweets compacted lie, 
My music shows you have your closes, 

And all must die. 

Only a sweet and virtuous soul, 

Like seasoned timber, never gives ; 
But when the whole world turns to coal, 

Then chiefly lives. 

Another poet of this time was Robert Herrick (1591- 

1674), a country parson who de- 
lighted in the sight of daffodils 
and primroses filled with dew, 
in country merrymakings, and in 
country superstitions about fair- 
ies. His brief poems on these 
subjects have the freshness and 
beauty of flowers. They were 
published in a volume called 
Hesperides. A second volume, 
Noble Numbers t contains poems 
on sacred themes that are wor- 
robert herrick thy of their title. 




IZAAK WALTON 4 1 

Our survey of the period will close with Izaak Walton 
( 1 593-1683). He lives in literature by his Compleat Angler, 
a book which, while intended for fishermen, is written in so 
quaint and delightful a vein, with its pictures of outdoor 
life and its touches of gentle humor, that it is read chiefly 
by those who seldom go a-fish- 
ing. The following is his de- 
scription of the song of birds : 

"As first the lark, when she means 
to rejoice, to cheer herself and those 
that hear her, she then quits the earth 
and sings as she ascends higher into 
the air ; and having ended her heavenly 
employment, grows then mute and sad 
to think she must descend to the dull 
earth, which she would not touch but 
for necessity. How do the blackbird 
and throssel, with their melodious 
voices, bid welcome to the cheerful 

IZAAK WALTON 

spring, and in their fixed mouths 

warble forth such ditties as no art or instrument can reach to ! . . . 
But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet 
loud music out of her little instrumental throat that it might make 
mankind to think miracles are not ceased. He that at midnight, when 
the very laborer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often, the 
clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and falling, the doubling 
and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted above earth, and say : 
• Lord, what music hast thou provided for the saints in heaven, when 
thou affordest bad men such music upon earth ! ' 11 



The law of action and reaction is curiously illustrated in 
the history of the seventeenth century. The Puritan age, 
with its theaters all closed and its strict Sabbath observance, 
was followed by the Restoration, when a pleasure-loving 
king set the fashion of dissolute living, and a great part of 




42 THE PURITAN AND RESTORATION PERIODS 

the people followed his example. The literature of the 
period as usual reflected the changed attitude. In place 
of the serious and dignified poetry of Milton and Herbert 
we find poets occupying themselves with satire, or amusing 
the court with plays which reflected its own low moral 
standards. Samuel Butler ridiculed the Puritans in a clever 
poem called Hudibras. Some of his couplets are still re- 
membered, as : 

We grant although he had much wit 
He was very shy of using it. 

He could distinguish and divide 
A hair "twixt south and southwest side ; 
On either side he could dispute, 
Confute, change hands, and still confute. 

Butler describes the Puritans as men who 

Compound for sins they are inclined to 
By damning those they have no mind to. 

In some respects, however, the Restoration influenced 
English literature for good. The exiled King brought back 
with him from France a taste for French literature. At 
this time the literature of France was at the height of its 
achievement. Its prose writers, Pascal, Bossuet, and La 
Fontaine, had brought French prose to a far higher degree 
of perfection than had been attained by any writers in 
English. In the drama the names of Corneille and Racine 
in tragedy and Moliere in comedy are still illustrious. 
This French literature was diligently read in England, and 
the study of such models helped in the development of 
English style. 

This influence is seen in the work of the chief writer of 
the Restoration period, John Dryden (1631-1700). He 



JOHN DRYDEN 



43 




was a man of letters by occupation, and a very industrious 
one, turning out plays, poems, translations, criticisms, 
satires, odes — all of 'it good 
work, but none of it quite reach- 
ing the level of great work. 
He is best remembered as a 
poet by his Absalom and Achit- 
opkel, a political satire; and by 
his odes, especially Alexander's 
Feast. Most of his poetry was 
written in the iambic couplet, 
a form of verse which he 
brought to a greater perfec- 
tion than any previous poet. 
His lines have been compared 
to the ring of a great bronze 
coin thrown down on marble. 
The famous verses upon Milton 
give his quality : 

Three poets, 1 in three distant ages born, 
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. 
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed, 
The next in majesty, in both the last. 
The force of Nature could no farther go ; 
To make a third, she joined the other two. 

Dryden's prose writings were chiefly in the form of 
critical essays. His discussions of Shakespeare and earlier 
English poets rank him as the first great critic in our liter- 
ature. The style of these essays, modeled upon the best 
French prose of the time, was different from that of earlier 
writers. Milton wrote sentences that were not seldom a 
page in length, and in construction were more like Latin 

1 Homer, Virgil, and Milton. 



J& n - %)*W&ri> 



44 THE PURITAN AND RESTORATION PERIODS 

than English. Dryden's prose is clear, vigorous, straight- 
forward ; he is the first writer in the modern style. 

One more book of this period remains to be noticed: 
Pepys's Diary. Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was an impor- 
tant man of the time ; he rose to be Secretary of the Ad- 
miralty under James II, and was President of the Royal 
Society. He kept his diary in shorthand, and wrote in it 
the minutest events of his life. The need of a million 
pounds for the royal navy is told, and the same page re- 
cords that he had his wig mended, and went to church 
with his wife in her new light-colored silk gown, "which 
is very noble." At Pepys's death he left his diary to Mag- 
dalen College, Oxford; it was not transcribed and published 
until a century later. As a picture of the times it is full 
of interest, and as a revelation of the' author's whole self, 
it is almost unique in English literature. 

READING FOR CHAPTER V 

Milton. — Paradise Lost, Books I and II ; or Minor Poems : V Allegro, 
II Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas. 

Milton's poetical works are edited by D. Masson, 3 vols. (Mac- 
millan). Single-volume editions are the Cambridge, 1 Globe, and Astor. 
Paradise Lost is published separately in Temple, Astor, and National. 
The minor poems (except Comus) and selections from Paradise 
Lost are in Ward, vol. ii ; Manly; Oxford; Warner, and Chambers, 
vol. i. Minor poems also in Hales and Pancoast. 

Bunyan. — The Pilgrim'' s Progress, Part I, or Grace Abounding. 

The Pilgrim's Progress is published in Temple, Riverside, Every- 
man's, and Handy Volume series ; Grace Abounding in National 
Library. Extracts in Craik, vol. iii. 

Herrick. — To Daffodils, To Pri??iroses filVd with Deiv, Mad Maid's 
Song, His Poetrie His Pillar, To the Virgins, The Rock of Rubies, 
Cherry Ripe, To Anthea, A Thanksgiving to God, Corinna's Going 

1 For publisher and price of various editions, see p. 142. 



READING FOR CHAPTER V 45 

a-Maying, His Litany, Night-Piece tofidia, To Violets, To Dianeme, The 
Hag, To Blossoms, The White Island, To Keep a True Lent. 

Herrick's poems are in Aldine (2 vols.)? Muses, Everyman's, and 
Temple editions. Copious selections in Ward, vol. ii, and Oxford 
Book; briefer in Chambers, vol. i; Warner, and Manly. 

Walton. — Compleat Angler, Chaps. II, IV, V. 

This is published in Library English Classics ; also Everyman's, 
Temple, and National. Brief extracts in Craik, vol. ii; Warner, and 
Pancoast. 

Dryden. — Alexander's Feast, Song for St. Cecilia' 1 s Day, Sketches 
of Achitophel and Zimri in Absalom a7id Achitophel. 

Dryden's poems are in Aldine edition (5 vols.), Albion (1 vol., 
F. Warne) ; Astor (1 vol.). Good selections given in Ward, vol. ii; 
Manly ; Warner, and Pancoast. 

For fuller treatment of authors in this period, see : J. H. B. Master- 
man's The Age of Milton (Macmillan), R. Garnett's Age of Milton 
(Macmillan), B. Wendell's Temper of the Seventeenth Century in Eng- 
lish Literature (Scribner), E. Dowden's Puritan and Anglican in 
English Literature (Holt), and the lives of Milton, Bunyan, and Dryden 
in English Men of Letters series (Macmillan). 



CHAPTER VI 
THE CLASSICAL AGE 



Jonathan Swift Richard Steele Daniel Defoe 
Joseph Addison Alexander Pope Samuel Richardson 
Henry Fielding 

The name " classical " is given to the literature of this 
period because it exhibits the qualities of restraint, of 
balance, of perfection of form, which characterize Greek 
and Latin literature. The writers of this period lacked 
the imagination of the Elizabethans; they were less origi- 
nal than the Puritan writers, but they excel them both 
in clearness and correctness. Now clearness and cor- 
rectness are excellent things, and it was no doubt a 
wholesome discipline for English literature to be thus 
trained for half a century. But clearness and correctness 
we think of rather as belonging to prose than to poetry, 
and we shall not be surprised to find that this classical 
period was, indeed > an age of prose. Nearly all the great 
authors were prose writers ; the only notable poet of the 
period was Pope. John Dryden, who was discussed in 
the preceding chapter, really belongs to the classical 
school, although in point of time he was somewhat earlier. 

First in time, and among the first in genius of the writers 
of this period, is Jonathan Swift ( 1667- 1745). He was 
born in Ireland, although of English parentage, and edu- 
cated at Trinity College, Dublin. He served for a time as 
secretary to Sir William Temple, an English statesman, 

46 



JONATHAN SWIFT 



47 



and here met Esther Johnson, who was his closest friend. 
Seeking advancement, Swift entered the church. The 
religious controversies of the time called forth his first 
book, the Tale of a Tub. This dealt with the disputes 
between the Roman Catholics, the Church of England, and 
the Dissenters. It showed Swift's power as a satirist, but 
his satire cut the Church of England as well as the others. 
He became involved in politics, and for some years exerted 
great influence in the Tory party. 
As a reward he was made Dean 
of St. Patrick's in Dublin, and 
unwillingly left London. His 
party, however, soon went out 
of power, Esther Johnson died, 
and Swift sank into despond- 
ency, which ended in insanity 
and death. 

His greatest book, Gulliver s 
Travels, was written after his fall 
from power. On the surface it 
is a tale for children ; in reality 
it is a satire of the bitterest kind. 
It tells of a voyage to Lilliput, 
where the men are but six inches high and the largest 
warships measure nine feet in length. It is a most divert- 
ing story, but when we read that among these people the 
highest positions at court are given to those who are most 
skillful in walking the tight-rope, and that a most bloody 
war was waged on the question whether an egg should be 
broken at the big or the little end, we see the satire on 
English political life. This satire deepens in the succes- 
sive parts of the story, until in the last voyage he describes 
a country where the men, or Yahoos, live miserably in 




$<md&: ^Hfife 



48 THE CLASSICAL AGE 

holes, fighting over bits of metal, while horses rule the 
land. 

A pleasanter side of Swift's nature is seen in his Journal 
to Stella. This is a series of letters, written almost daily 
while he was in London to Esther Johnson in Ireland. 

Be you lords or be you earls, 
You must write to naughty girls, 

he says, and this is the way he writes. M D is his name 
for Stella. 

Morning. O faith, you're impudent for presuming to write so soon, 
said I to myself this morning ; who knows but there may be a letter 
from M D at the coffee-house ! Well, you must know, and so I just 
now sent Patrick, and he brought me three letters, but not one from 
M D, no indeed, for I read all the superscriptions, and not one from 
M D. One I opened, it was from the Archbishop ; t'other I opened, it 
was from Staunton ; the third I took, and looked at the hand. "Whose 
hand is this?" says I, yes, says I "Whose hand is this?" Then there 
was wax between the folds: then I began to suspect; then I peeped; 
faith, it was Walls 1 hand after all : then I opened it in a rage, and then 
it was little M D's hand, dear little pretty charming M D's hand 
again. 

Some writers assert that Swift and Stella were secretly 
married, but no conclusive evidence of this has been pro- 
duced. 

Joseph Addison (1672-1719), like Swift, mingled letters 
and politics. After his graduation at Oxford he wrote a 
poem celebrating the victory of the Duke of Marlborough 
at Blenheim, and was rewarded with an office. He rose 
rapidly to a seat in Parliament, married a lady of rank, 
and finally became Secretary of State. His chief contri- 
butions to literature, however, were not his political writings 
nor his stiff tragedy called Cato, but his essays contributed 
to The Spectator. 



RICHARD STEELE 



49 




To discuss this we must turn first to Addison's friend, 
Richard Steele (1671-1729). Steele and Addison had 
been together as schoolboys and in college. But Steele 
left college to become a soldier, left the army to become a 
writer of political pamphlets, left politics for playwriting, 
and finally in 1709 conceived the idea of starting a weekly 
paper. This he called The Tat- 
ler. It contained, in addition to 
the news, a brief essay on some 
topic of current interest. Some- 
times it was a review ot a book, 
sometimes a humorous article on 
the fashions of the day, some- 
times a story with a moral. This 
essay was the most popular part 
of the paper, and presently the 
news was dropped altogether. 
Addison was called in to write 
for the new journal. It succeeded 
so well that in 171 1 Steele and 
Addison started a daily paper of 

a similar nature, and called it The Spectator. In the sec- 
ond number Steele sketched the character of Sir Roger de 
Coverley and other members of the Spectator Club, and in 
following numbers he and Addison completed the series 
now known as the De Coverley Papers. The success of The 
Spectator 'was remarkable. Of some numbers twenty thou- 
sand copies were sold. Not less remarkable was the in- 
fluence the essays exerted upon the manners and morals of 
the time. For the authors frankly stated that their aim 
was to drive out vice and folly by making it ridiculous. 
For us to-day the essays are interesting as a picture of 
the time. They number nearly a thousand, and reflect 



% 



J* y^tArtL. 



, 

F 



50 



THE CLASSICAL AGE 



almost every side of English social life. We learn of the 
amusements, the religious views, the popular books, the 
music, the very street cries of London. The Spectator 
and The Tatler are the joint work of Addison and Steele, 
with occasional papers by other writers. It is difficult to 
say whose part is the better. Addison's essays are perhaps 
more finished in style, Steele's more spontaneous and 
more genial in spirit. Together they share the credit of 
having developed a new literary form, the periodical essay. 
In poetry the chief name in this period is that of 
Alexander Pope (1688- 1744). He was born in London, 

of Roman Catholic parentage. 
Consequently the universities 
were not open to him, and he 
was educated by tutors. In per- 
son he was dwarfish and de- 
formed, but he possessed a keen 
and receptive mind. He began 
to write verse almost as a child, 
and soon became known as one 
of the chief literary figures of 
the time. After some early 
publications he undertook to 
translate Homer's Iliad; it was 
published by subscription, and 
brought the author ;£ 10,000. 
He purchased a villa at Twick- 
enham, near London, where he entertained Swift and 
other friends. He had a jealous nature, and was continu- 
ally getting involved in literary quarrels. To revenge 
himself he wrote a long poem called The Dunciad, or epic 
of dunces, in which he satirized his adversaries without 
mercy. His chief works, in addition to those mentioned, 




^4*> 



ALEXANDER POPE 5 I 

are the Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock, and the 
Essay on Man. The first of these gives rules for writing 
and for criticising. Pope maintained that the chief merit 
of poetry lay not in the ideas expressed, but in the manner 
of expressing them ; or, as he puts it : 

True wit is nature to advantage dressed. 

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed. 

None of Pope's maxims for writing well are original ; he 
took them from Latin and from French critics, but he 
has expressed them so well that it is scarcely possible to 
improve them. 

Words are like leaves, and where they most abound, 
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. 

He says of the use of words : 

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, 
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. 

The Rape of the Lock, a narrative poem based upon the 
incident of a young lord cutting a lock of hair from a 
belle's head, is a brilliant picture of fashionable society of 
the time. The Essay on Man is a philosophical poem ; 
many of its lines are familiar, as : 

Hope springs eternal in the human breast, 
Man never is. but always to be, blest. 

Honor and shame from no condition rise, 
Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien. 
As to be hated needs but to be seen ; 
Yet, seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 



52 THE CLASSICAL AGE 

Pope is the successor of Dryden in poetry; his work has 
the merits and the defects of the classical school. It is 
lacking in imagination ; it has little originality; it is almost 
all cast in one mold, — the heroic couplet. But in per- 
fection of literary form, in aptness of phrase, in pointed wit, 
it is unsurpassed. Pope is more quoted than any other 
English poet except Shakespeare. 

The only other name of importance in the poetry of this 
period is Edward Young (1681-1765). He was an Oxford 
scholar, who is remembered as the author of Night Thoughts. 
This long poem is a series of musings on religious themes, 
usually gloomy in tone. In its day it was very popular ; 
now it survives only in a few oft-quoted lines, such as : 

Tired Nature's sweet restorer, gentle sleep. 
Procrastination is the thief of time. 
Blessings brighten as they take their flight. 

One of the notable achievements in this period was the 
development of the novel. The novel, as distinguished 
from the romance, aims to give a picture of life as it really 
is. When we read a book like Gulliver s Travels, we know 
it is not true ; when we read of Robinson Crusoe on his is- 
land, we may suspect that it is all a story, yet it might easily 
be true. There is nothing improbable in it, nothing that 
has not actually happened. A story of this kind we call 
a novel, and the credit of writing the first English novel 
belongs to Daniel Defoe (1 659-1 731). Defoe was one of 
the most prolific writers in English literature. Earlier 
than Steele he published a weekly paper, the Review, 
writing the entire contents himself. He wrote political 
pamphlets almost without number, and when one of these 
led to his being sentenced to stand in the pillory, he 
promptly wrote a Hymn to the Pillory. A short sketch 






DEFOE, RICHARDSON 



53 



called The True Relation of Mrs. Veal showed his skill in 
inventing a story that read like a record of fact. He in- 
terviewed noted characters, — Jonathan Wild the highway- 
man and Captain Avery the pirate, — and wrote up their 
lives as a newspaper man does to-day. He heard the story 
of Alexander Selkirk, a sailor who had been wrecked on 
a desert isle in the Pacific ; the incident appealed to his 
imagination, and Robinson Crusoe was the result. Its suc- 
cess led him to write other novels, Captain Singleton, Moll 
Flanders, etc. ; but none of them 
equaled his first book. Robin- <*-,-■■*■?- ,*** 

son Crusoe is regarded as a book 
for young folks. It is ; but it is 
also one of the great pieces of 
fiction in English literature. Its 
merit lies in its wonderful power 
of making fiction seem like 
truth. The little incidents of 
Crusoe's life on the island, the 
way he closed the door of his 
cave, his labor in making a boat, 
and his disappointment at find- 
ing when it was finished that he 
could not move it to the water, 
his terror at seeing the footprint 
in the sand, — all these are told so vividly and with such 
minute detail that they seem the record of real events. 

A further step in the development of the novel was 
taken by Samuel Richardson (i 689-1 761). He was a 
London printer who as a young man had shown great 
talent for letter-writing. Several young ladies of his ac- 
quaintance got him to conduct their correspondence with 
their sweethearts. Some time later he was asked to pre- 




54 THE CLASSICAL AGE 

pare a sort of model letter-writer, and conceived the idea 
of telling a story in letters. The result was Pamela, his 
first novel. This met with such success that he followed 
it with two others, Clarissa Harlowe and Sir Charles 
Grandison, — all written in the form of letters. Richard- 
son's novels are little read to-day. Their length — his 
masterpiece, Clarissa Harlowe, fills eight volumes- — and 
the lack of variety in style are not to the taste of modern 
readers. Yet in one respect he was superior to Defoe; 
that is, in drawing character, particularly feminine char- 
acter. His early experiences as a letter-writer, his later 
years when he was a petted guest at many a tea table, 
gave him a knowledge of women's minds and women's 
hearts such as few men possessed. 

In his novels Richardson always aimed to teach a moral 
lesson. This lofty tone, and the profuse sentiment of his 
novels, provoked Henry Fielding (i 707-1 754) to write 
Joseph Andrezvs in ridicule of Pamela. But once begun, 
the story soon became more than a mere burlesque, and in 
this book and its greater successor, Tom Jones, the English 
novel reached its full development. Fielding's work is 
notable for the skillful construction of his plots, the way 
events in the lives of various persons are woven together 
to make a single story. He dropped the letter-writing 
method of Richardson, and told his stories as a novelist 
does to-day. His work has a coarseness which offends mod- 
ern readers, but in this respect it was typical of the period. 
The novel, once developed, became so popular that many 
writers turned to it. Lawrence Sterne wrote A Sentimen- 
tal Journey and Tristram Shandy ; Tobias Smollett wrote 
Humphrey Clinker and Roderick Random; while at the 
close of the period we have Johnson's Rasselas and Gold- 
smith's Vicar of Wakefield, which will be considered later. 



READING FOR CHAPTER VI 55 



READING FOR CHAPTER VI 

Swift. — Gulliver' 1 s Travels : Voyage to Lilliput ; and Journal to 
Stella : Letters 10, 31, 63. 

Gulliver's Travels is published in Temple, Riverside, Everyman's, 
and Handy Volume series. 1 The Journal to Stella is in the Universal 
Library. Selections in Craik, vol. iii ; Warner; Pancoast, and Cham- 
bers, vol. ii. 

Addison. — From the Spectator, the De Coverley Papers, or the fol- 
lowing essays : Nos. 13, 25, 50, 102, 159, 173, 235, 247, 275, 281, 323. 

The Spectator is in Everyman's Library (4 vols.) . Selected essays in 
Athenaeum and Handy Volume series. Selections in Craik, vol. iii, and 
Chambers, vol. ii. 

Defoe. — Robinson Crusoe. 

Robinson Crusoe is in Riverside, Everyman's, and Handy. Volume 
series. Pancoast gives The Apparition oj Mrs. Veal, one of Defoe's 
shorter tales. 

Pope. — Essay on Man, Epistles I, II, and IV ; and Rape oj the Lock, 
or Essay on Criticism, and The Universal Prayer. 

Pope's works are in Aldine series (3 vols.). Single-volume editions 
are Cambridge, Globe, and Astor. The Essay on Man is in National 
Library. Selections in Ward, vol. iii; Manly; Warner; Pancoast, 
and Chambers, vol. ii. The Rape of the Lock is in Hales. 

Fuller treatment of the authors in this period is given in J. Dennis's 
The Age of Pope (Macmillan), E. Gosse's History of Eighteenth Century 
Literature (Macmillan), L. Stephen's Hours in a Library (Put- 
nam), W. M. Thackeray's English Humorists (Holt), W. L. Cross's 
Development of the English Novel (Macmillan) ; also the lives of Swift, 
Addison, Defoe, Fielding, and Pope in English Men of Letters series 
(Macmillan). 

1 For publisher and price of various editions, see p. 142. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE AGE OF JOHNSON 

Samuel Johnson Edmund Burke James Thomson 

Oliver Goldsmith Edward Gibbon Thomas Gray 

In this period we see some of the tendencies of the 
classical age continued, and at the same time the begin- 
ning of a revolt against these tendencies, — a revolt that 
later produced the Romantic Movement. 

The great name of the period is that of Samuel Johnson 
( 1 709-1 784). He was the son of a bookseller of Lich- 
field, and grew up among books. He went to Oxford, but 
poverty obliged him to leave before taking his degree. 
He tried keeping a school, but without success, and finally 
went up to London with a pupil, David Garrick, to make 
his way by literature. He became a booksellers' hack, 
writing translations, pamphlets, reviews, whatever the 
publishers would pay for. He planned a Dictionary of the 
English Language, which when published in 1755 gave him 
considerable fame. He wrote a series of essays in the 
style of The Spectator, called The Rambler, and a story, 
Rasselas. His last important work was his Lives of the 
Poets, dealing with the chief writers of the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries. He died in 1784, and received 
the honor of a tomb in Westminster Abbey. 

In his day Johnson was a sort of literary monarch ; 
his praise of a book was enough to insure its sale. To- 
day his writings, with the exception of Rasselas and the 

56 



JOHNSON, GOLDSMITH 



57 



Lives of the Poets ; are seldom read, and the changing 
standards of criticism make his judgments often strange 
to us. Yet Johnson is likely to be remembered as long 
as any name in our literature. He owes this singular im- 
mortality to the famous Life, written by his friend Bos- 
well. James Boswell was John- 
son's most ardent admirer; he 
followed him about, noting down 
his sayings and collecting anec- 
dotes about him, for twenty 
years. In his book we see John- 
son as he was in life : the huge 
form, in the snuff-colored coat 
with metal buttons, his wig 
slightly singed where he bent 
too far over the candle ; we 
learn how many cups of tea he 
drank, and his curious habit of 
treasuring up bits of lemon peel ; 
we are admitted to his conver- 
sations with his friends : Gar- 
rick the actor, Sir Joshua 
Reynolds the painter, Burke the 
orator, and Goldsmith the writer ; 
we have Johnson's report of his 
interview with the King, and his 
statement of why he thrashed 
a bookseller. It is a record as detailed as Pepys's Diary, 
and as Dr. Johnson was a far greater man than Pepys, the 
result is a far greater book. It is the greatest biography 
in English literature. 

Closely associated with Johnson is Oliver Goldsmith 
( 1 728-1 774). Goldsmith was an Irishman, with an Irish 




Ju^fyty^ 



53 



The age of johnson 



talent for blundering, an Irish heart for friendship, and an 
Irish wit that helped him through the trials of a life spent 
as a bookseller's drudge. He was educated at Trinity 
College, Dublin, and later went abroad to study medicine. 
He wandered about the continent for a time ; then, return- 
ing to England, tried to practice as a physician. Failing in 
this and other makeshifts, he finally found work with the 
booksellers. He wrote a series of periodical essays, after- 
wards reprinted as The Citizen 
of the World. Two poems, The 
Traveller and The Deserted Vil- 
lage, gave him considerable repu- 
tation. His best-known work, 
The Vicar of Wakefield, has a 
curious history. Dr. Johnson 
received a message from Gold- 
smith asking him to come in 
haste. Going to Goldsmith's 
lodging, he found him held a 
prisoner by his landlady for 
not paying his rent. Johnson 
searched among Goldsmith's 
papers, found the manuscript of 
the novel, and taking it to a bookseller sold it for £60. 
Goldsmith's comedy, She Stoops to Conqjier, brought him 
,£400, but money always ran through Goldsmith's fingers, 
and he died heavily in debt. Goldsmith's work lies in 
several fields of literature, and in all he attained high dis- 
tinction. His essays in The Citizen of the World stand 
comparison with those of Addison. His two poems, The 
Traveller and The Deserted Village, in their genuine feeling 
and truthful descriptions of nature, show a departure from 
the artificiality* of the classical school. In She Stoops to 




&&^r> ^r$7^<^%' 



GOLDSMITH, SHERIDAN, BURKE 59 

Conquer Goldsmith has written one of the great comedies 
of our literature ; it still holds the stage, delighting audi- 
ences alike by the clever turns of the plot and the wit of 
the dialogue. The Vicar of Wakefield has taken its place 
among the classics of English fiction. Its charm is due in 
part to the humorously tender way in which Goldsmith 
portrays his characters, in part to its pictures of English 
rural life. Of Goldsmith's work as a whole, the verdict 
passed by Johnson long ago still stands : " Sir, he was a 
very great man." 

Close to the work of Goldsmith in comedy we may 
place that of another young Irishman, Richard Brinsley 
Sheridan (1 751-18 16). At twenty-four he wrote The 
Rivals, and two years later The School for Scandal. It 
is sufficient praise to say that in the hundred years that 
have passed since his time English literature has produced 
no comedy worthy to stand beside these. 

A century which created the novel and developed the 
periodical essay might be thought sufficiently distinguished 
in prose, but this period is notable also for the greatest of 
English orators, Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797). Burke, 
like Goldsmith and Sheridan, was of Irish descent. Born 
in Dublin and educated at Trinity College, he went to 
London to study law. But he read more literature than 
law, and, when his father cut off his allowance, turned to 
his pen for support. One of his most considerable pro- 
ductions was The Annual Register, a sort of political 
encyclopedia, published year by year, to which he was a 
chief contributor for thirty years. He entered Parliament 
as a Whig, and first distinguished himself by a speech 
favoring the repeal of the Stamp Act. He took a keen 
interest in American affairs, and on the eve of the Revolu- 
tionary War delivered his great speech On Conciliation 



6o 



THE AGE OF JOHNSON 



with America, in which he advocated the plan of remov- 
ing all Parliamentary taxation, leaving it to the colonial 
assemblies to grant money as they thought proper. In 
1788 he once more came forward as the champion of an 
oppressed people, the occasion being the impeachment 
of Warren Hastings for misgovernment in India. Burke 

made one of his greatest speeches 
on this occasion, and though it 
failed of its immediate purpose, 
as Hastings was not convicted, 
the abuses against which Burke 
declaimed were never repeated. 
Toward the close of Burke's 
life a third great public question, 
the French Revolution, called 
forth his famous Reflections on 
tJie Revolution in France, and 
his Letter to a Noble Lord. In 
these Burke appeared as the 
champion of monarchy ; he saw 
in the Revolution only the utter 
overthrow of every principle of established government, 
and used his utmost power to turn English feeling 
against it. 

Burke presents the curious phenomenon of an orator 
who was almost a failure when he attempted to speak. 
His figure was ungainly, his voice harsh, his gestures 
awkward ; his rising to speak was the signal for so many 
members to leave that he was nicknamed "the dinner- 
bell of the House.'' Yet the same men who left when he 
spoke were eager to read his speeches when printed, for 
nowhere else was there such skill in argument supported 
by such stores of information ; nowhere else such power 




HUME, GIBBON 



61 



of seizing the essential points of a great question and 
lighting them up with the fire of the imagination ; no- 
where else was there a man who added to a command of 
the resources of the language a mastery of the great 
principles of politics and government. John Morley well 
says of Burke's speeches : " They comprise the most per- 
fect manual in our literature, or in any literature, for one 
who approaches the study of 
public affairs." 

In one more department of 
literature, that of history, this 
period contains distinguished 
names. David Hume (171 i- 
1776), a Scotch philosopher, 
published a History of Ejigland, 
from the beginning to the Revo- 
lution. His work has been 
superseded by that of later writ- 
ers. Not so the work of Edward 
Gibbon (173 7- 1794), the histo- 
rian of the Roman Empire. 
Gibbon's life affords a signal 
instance of what may be accom- 
plished by a single devotion to 
a great purpose. It was in 1764 that he formed the idea 
of writing his history ; it was twelve years before the first 
volume was published, and twelve years more before the 
work was completed. In that time Gibbon had made him- 
self master of his subject by reading absolutely everything 
that could throw light upon it. Gifted by nature with a 
logical mind, he was able to arrange this vast mass of 
material in true order and proportion. By diligent ex- 
periment and practice he developed a style suited to the 




62 THE AGE OF JOHNSON 

dignity of his theme. As a result, his Decline and Fall 
of the Roman Empire is still, after a hundred years, a 
standard work. 

Gibbon concludes our survey of the prose of the period. 
Turning to the poets, we find signs that the classical 
school has had its day. A new school of poetry was soon 
to arise ; a new impulse, known as the Romantic Move- 
ment, was to give fresh inspiration to literature. The 
history of this movement belongs to the succeeding chap- 
ter, but the way was prepared for it by the poets of 
this age. 

Of these the earliest was James Thomson (i 700-1 748), a 
Scotchman, a graduate of Edinburgh University, who is 
remembered as the author of The Seasons. The first part, 
Winter, was published in 1726, followed shortly after by 
Summer, Spring, and Autumn. These poems describe 
country scenes under the changing aspects of the year. In 
choice of subjects The Seasons is in marked contrast to the 
poetry of Dryden and Pope ; their interests were with the 
life of the town, and their subjects were taken chiefly from 
the society about them. In another respect the poem is 
significant. It is written in blank verse, not in the heroic 
couplet. This independence of the classical tradition was 
further shown in Thomson's Castle of Indolence, a long 
poem written in the Spenserian stanza. In the rich music 
of its verse, and the imaginative power displayed, it is a 
notable contrast to a poem like the Essay on Man. 

Another poet of this period was William Collins (1721- 
1759). He was educated at Oxford, and for a time strug- 
gled along as a literary man in London. His period of 
work was brief ; his mind became weakened, and he died 
at thirty-five. He has left a slender volume of poems of a 
singular and delicate beauty. His odes, To Evening, The 



COLLINS, GRAY 63 

Passions, and On Highland Superstitions, have a music 
that had been silent in English poetry for nearly a hundred 
years. He is the first great lyric poet since Robert Her- 
rick. One of his odes is brief enough to quote here : 

ODE 

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest 
By all their country's wishes blessed! 
When Spring with dewy fingers cold 
Returns to deck their hallowed mould. 
She there shall dress a sweeter sod 
Than fancy's feet have ever trod. 

By fairy hands their knell is rung ; 
By forms unseen their dirge is sung ; 
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, 
To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; 
And Freedom shall awhile repair 
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there. 

The best known of the poets of this period is Thomas 
Gray (1716-1771). Gray was fortunate in having means 
to live without becoming a bookseller's hack. A graduate 
of Cambridge University and later a professor there, he 
spent his life in study. He preferred reading books to 
writing them, and the amount of his literary work is sur- 
prisingly small. It comprises some very entertaining 
letters, a few essays, and a mere handful of poems. But 
one of these poems is probably the most famous short 
poem in English literature, the Elegy in a Country Church- 
yard. It was begun in 1742, but not published until 
1 75 1. Even then the poet was not satisfied with it, and 
in successive editions made changes for fifteen years. 
The poem is representative of the new movement in poetry 
in its subject, which is drawn from country life, and in its 



64 THE AGE OF JOHNSON 

tone of gentle melancholy, like a faint echo from Milton's 
II Penseroso. In the tribute to the worth of these simple 

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REDUCED FACSIMILE OF MS. OF GRAY'S "ELEGY" 



tillage people one hears the first breathings of a new note 
— the note of democracy — that later rang out bold and 
clear in Robert Burns. 

READING FOR CHAPTER VII 

Johnson. — Rasselas, or Boswell's Life, chapters covering 1763. 

Rasselas is published in, English Reading series (Holt); also in 
Universal and National Library. 1 Boswell's Life is in Library English 
Classics (3 vols.), Temple (6 vols.), Everyman's (2 vols.). Selections 
from Johnson in Craik, vol. iv ; Chambers, vol. ii, and Warner (under 
Johnson and Boswell). 

Goldsmith. — Vicar of Wakefield, or She Stoops to Conquer, or 
The Traveller, and The Deserted Village, or selected essays from Citi- 
zen of the World. 

The Vicar of Wakefield, with Goldsmith's plays and poems complete 
in one volume, is in the Library of English Classics. Vicar of Wakefield 
separately in Everyman's, Temple, and Handy Volume series. Plays in 

1 For publisher and price of various editions, see p. 142. 



READING FOR CHAPTER VII 65 

Temple and National Library. Poems in Temple, Aldine, and Astor. 
Citizen of the World in Temple and Universal Library. The Deserted 
Village is in Pancoast, Manly, and Hales. Selections from essays in 
Craik, vol. iv, and Pancoast. 

Sheridan. — The Rivals, The School for Scandal. 
Sheridan's plays are published in Library of English Classics, Tem- 
ple, Athenaeum, Everyman's, Handy Volume, and National Library. 

Burke. — Speech on Conciliation, or Speech on Ainerican Taxation. 
Burke's Select Works are published in 3 vols. (Clarendon Press). 
There are numerous school editions of the Speech on Conciliation. 

Thomson. — From The Seasons, Spring, 11. 145-175; Summer, 11. 
350-423; Autumn, 11. 310-360 and 950-1002; Winter, 11. 223-265 and 

323-39°- 

Thomson's poems are in Aldine (2 vols.), Muses (2 vols.), and 
Astor (1 vol.). Good selections in Ward, vol. iii ; Manly; Warner; 
Pancoast, and Chambers, vol. ii. 

Collins. — From the Odes : To Evening, The Passions, Simplicity. 
Oriental Eclogues : II, Hassan ; Dirge in Cymbeline, Ode on Highland 
Superstitions. 

Collins's poems are published in Aldine, Muses, and Athenaeum 
series. Selections in Ward, vol. iii; Manly; Warner, and Chambers, 
vol. ii. 

Gray. — Elegy, Ode on Spring, Eton College, The Bard, On a 
Favorite Cat. 

Gray's poems are published in Aldine and Muses Library. Selec- 
tions in Athenaeum series. Representative poems in Pancoast ; Manly ; 
Oxford; Ward, vol. iii; Warner; Hales, and Chambers, vol. ii. 

For fuller treatment of authors of this period, see : T. Seccombe's 
Age of fohusou (Macmillan), L. Stephen's Hours in a Library (Put- 
nam), M. O. W. Oliphanfs Literary History of England (Macmillan). 
H. A. Beers's English Romanticism, XVLLI Century (Holt), and lives 
of Johnson, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Burke, Gibbon, Gray, in English Men 
of Letters series (Macmillan). 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM 

Robert Burns Walter Scott John Keats 

S. T. Coleridge George G. Byron Charles Lamb 

Wm. Wordsworth Percy B. Shelley Thomas de Qnincey 

In the preceding chapter we have traced the beginnings 
of the Romantic Movement as seen in a turning from 
town to country life, a new feeling for democracy, and a 
greater variety and freedom in the forms of verse. These 
tendencies were carried still further in the period now to be 
considered, and with others they make up the Romantic 
Movement. This reached its height in the writings of 
Wordsworth and Coleridge, but before that time we see 
the rising of the tide in Cowper, Blake, arfd Burns. One 
of the significant events of the time was the publication 
of a number of the early English and Scottish Ballads. 
This fine poetry had been almost forgotten for nearly a 
century. By chance Bishop Thomas Percy came into 
possession of an old manuscript containing about a hun- 
dred ballads, and published them in 1765 under the title 
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. The effect of this 
book was remarkable. The short ballad stanzas were a 
form of poetry new to the age, and the simplicity of 
style was in sharp contrast to the stately, sometimes 
artificial, diction of the school of Pope. 

The poet William Cowper (1 731-1800) adopted the bal- 
lad measure for his humorous poem John Gilpin. His long 

66 



BLAKE, BURNS 67 

poem, The Task, is in blank verse ; it shows a love for 
natural scenery as strong as Thomson's, and a greater 
skill in description. As a poet of nature he is the fore- 
runner of Wordsworth. 

William Blake (i 757-1 827) is a strange figure among 
the poets of the time. He believed himself to be in- 
spired, and published strange books of poetical prophecy. 
He was an artist and engraver as well as a poet, and 
his books, instead of being printed from type, were en- 
graved on copper plates, printed from these, and then the 
illustrations were colored by hand. This new process he 
said was supernaturally revealed to him. In this way he 
published three small volumes of lyrical poetry : Poetical 
Sketches, Songs of Innocence, and Songs of Experience. 
These poems are like nothing else of their time. Some 
have the simplicity of childhood, some tantalize us with 
hints of strange meanings just beyond our reach, some 
are pure bursts of music like bird notes. Blake was ut- 
terly independent of convention ; in life, as in his poetry, 
he was guided from within, not from without. And in this 
breaking away from everything like rules he represents an 
important aspect of the Romantic Movement. 

But the greatest of the early Romantic writers was 
Robert Burns (1 759-1 796). Burns was born in Ayrshire, 
Scotland. His father was a farmer in poor circumstances, 
and the boy got his education from the village schoolmaster. 
He early formed a taste for poetry, and almost as early fell 
in love with a peasant lass and wrote verses about her. 
Love and poetry continued to be his chief interests through- 
out life; unfortunately neither of them afforded the means 
of living. He tried farming without success, and decided 
to emigrate to the West Indies. To raise money for his 
passage he published a small volume of his poems. This 



68 



THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM 



with wild companions 



brought him an invitation to visit Edinburgh. He went, 
and was received as a lion by Edinburgh society. After 
two winters of this, Burns secured an appointment as ex- 
ciseman, or inspector of liquor duties, and returned to Ayr- 
shire. He married Jean Armour, one of his many loves, 
and settled down to combine farming with his inspectorship. 
But neither prospered. His duties as inspector threw him 

habits of intoxication grew upon 
him, and his farm went to ruin. 
He died at thirty-seven, wrecked 
by hardships and excesses. 

Burns is the first poet of the 
common people in English lit- 
erature. He was born among 
them, lived and worked and died 
among them, wrote his songs in 
their language, and built his 
monument in their hearts. He 
is loved by the Scotch people 
with a passionate devotion that 
is given to no other poet in no 
other land. And in other coun- 
tries, wherever the English lan- 
guage is spoken, the songs of Burns have the power to 
touch hearts which more cultivated poets leave unmoved. 
This power is due in part to the absolute sincerity of his 
poetry. He had a rich, strong nature, generous in its im- 
pulses, easily moved to pity or indignation, and his poetry 
is no mere mechanical verse-making, but the overflow of 
powerful feeling. He has pity for the field mouse turned 
up by his plow ; he sees the beauty of the mountain 
daisy ; he thrills with patriotism at the deeds of Bruce, and 
these become the subjects of his poetry. Again, Burns 




u*nj 



ROBERT BURNS 



6 9 



had the power of expressing this feeling in words that sing. 
The distinguishing features of lyric poetry are genuine 
feeling and singing quality. Burns possessed both to such 
a degree that he has been called the greatest lyric poet in 
our literature. His songs are his best work, but close be- 
side them stand Tarn O' Shanter, with its rich humor, and 
The Cotter s Saturday Night, that finest picture of the do- 











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IRTHPLACE OF ROBERT BUFJNS 



mestic life of the Scotch peasant. Burns represents the 
Romantic Movement in many phases. His poetry deals 
with country life; his diction and his meters are not those 
of classical poets ; his sympathy for the lower animals is 
apparent in many poems ; and even more pronounced is 
his democratic spirit. When he sings, 

Is there, for honest poverty, 

That hangs his head, and a' that? 
The coward slave, we pass him by, 

We dare be poor for a 1 that ! 



70 THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM 

For a 1 that, and a' that. 

Our toils obscure, and a 1 that, 
The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 

The man's the gowd for a 1 that, 

he expresses what probably many a man had thought but 
no English poet before him had ever ventured to say. 






WW? 



tykJl \0\hfc4 irtdL jfoinr\, 



MS. POEM BY ROBERT BURNS 



Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1 772-1 834), like Burns, was 
a man of genius who had little ability to make his way in 
the world. He was educated at Christ's Hospital School, 
London, and at Cambridge University. With Robert 
Southey, a friend and fellow-poet, he formed a scheme of 
going to America and establishing there a colony where 
all would be on an equality and all work together for the 
common good. The plan was never carried out, but it is 
characteristic of the new impulses of the time. Coleridge 
married and removed to Nether Stowey, in the Lake 
region of England. Here he was associated with Words- 



.SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



7* 



worth, and in a single year (1799) produced his best 
poems : The Ancient Mariner, Kubla KJian, and the first 
part of Chris tab el. He visited Germany, and became 
deeply interested in philosophy. He continued to write, 
in prose and verse, producing 
some excellent criticism but no 
more great poems. He had be- 
come a slave to the opium habit, 
and his weakened will made it 
impossible for him to carry out 
the great books he planned. He 
holds a place in literature as 
poet and as critic. Of his poetry, 
it has well been said that all 
that he did excellently might be 
bound up in twenty pages, but 
it should be bound in pure gold. 
The Ancient Mariner is his 
greatest work. It deals with the 
supernatural: a story of how the slaying of a bird is 
avenged by spiritual powers. In the vividness of its suc- 
cessive pictures, now of a becalmed ship on a glassy sea,, 
now of regions of Arctic ice, now of the Spectre Ship and 
its horrid crew, we see an imaginative power almost Mil- 
tonic. And in the tender and beautiful close, 




y % 7. C^yJctf 



Farewell, farewell, but this I tell 
To thee, thou Wedding Guest, 

He prayeth well who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast ; 



He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things, both great and small ; 

For the dear God who loveth us 
He made and loveth all. 



72 THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM 

we see another side of the Romantic Movement, the new 
reverence for even the meanest of God's creatures. 

Coleridge's critical work includes an extended discus- 
sion of the poetry of Wordsworth, published in his Biogra- 
phia Literaria, and a volume of Lectures on Shakespeare. 
Both show critical power of the highest order. 

William Wordsworth (i 770-1 850), Coleridge's fellow- 
poet, was more fortunate in the circumstances of his life 

than most men of letters. He 
was born at Cockermouth, in 
Yorkshire, educated at Cam- 
bridge, traveled in France and 
Germany, and finally established 
himself at Rydal Mount in the 
Lake region of England, noted 
for the beauty of its natural 
scenery. He married a woman 
of fine intelligence, Mary Hutch- 
inson, and was also fortunate in 
the companionship of his sister 
Dorothy, whose tastes were like 

^*6>r0r«~JX; * is own : . A , for ! u " ate legacy 

from a friend, and later a gov- 
ernment position with light duties, supplied his simple 
wants and left him free to make poetry the serious occu- 
pation of his life. His first important work was a volume 
called Lyrical Ballads, the joint work of Wordsworth and 
Coleridge, which appeared in 1798. This book marks an 
epoch in English poetry. It contained Coleridge's Ancient 
Mariner, and a number of Wordsworth's poems, including 
the famous Tintern Abbey. In the preface Wordsworth 
explained his theory of poetry. His subjects, he said, 
were drawn from the ordinary life of persons living in rural 




WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 73 

surroundings ; he aimed to make these interesting by 
throwing over -them the light of the imagination. The 
language of his poetry was not to be the artificial diction 
of the classical school, who spoke of country people as 
"nymphs" and "swains," and of morning as "Aurora," 
but it was the language of ordinary life. Many of his 
poems dealt with nature. To him nature was more than 
a thing to be described ; it was something like a living 
presence, with power not only to delight but to mold 
character. He tells us that 

One impulse from a vernal wood 

May teach you more of man. 
Of moral evil, and of good, 

Than all the sages can. 

He finds in nature the power to soothe and comfort the 
mind, even in recollection of past sights. He says of the 
daffodils in their beauty, 

Ten thousand saw I at a glance. 

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. . . . 

I gazed, and gazed, but little thought 
What wealth the show to me had brought. 

For oft, when on my couch I lie 
In vacant or in pensive mood, 
They flash upon that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude ; 
And then my heart with pleasure fills 
And dances with the daffodils. 

Through nature, he says, man is even led to God. This 
spiritual view of nature is Wordsworth's great contribution 
to English poetry. Recognition of his work came slowly, 
but it came at last, and in 1843 ne was made Poet Laureate. 
He was one of the most voluminous of our great poets ; 
his poems number nearly a thousand, some of them of con- 



74 



THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM 



siderable length. But his work is very unequal, and his 
best poems, as Matthew Arnold's collection shows, may be 
contained in a single volume of moderate size. 

A writer closely associated with Coleridge and Words- 
worth, but of much less significance, was Robert Southey 
(1774-1843). He was a man of letters by profession, and 
wrote many volumes of prose and verse. His Life of Nelson 
is still regarded as a model of brief biography. Of his poetry, 
The Curse of Kehama, & long narrative poem based upon 
Hindu mythology, shows him at his best. It illustrates 

the turning to new subjects 
which was one of the features 
of the Romantic Movement. 
Some of his shorter poems, such 
as the Battle of Blenheim and 
the Stanzas written in his Li- 
brary, are better known than his 
more ambitious epics. 

Neither Coleridge nor Words- 
worth was popular in his day. 
The Lyrical Ballads were so 
different from the accepted kind 
of poetry that they puzzled most 
/^^2^w£^c^ / ^^'* readers. The writer who made 
y romantic poetry popular was 

Walter Scott (1771-1832). We are apt to think of Scott 
first as a novelist, but he turned to novel writing only after 
he had won fame as a poet. He was born in Edinburgh ; 
his father was a lawyer, and sent his son to the Univer- 
sity there that he might follow the same profession. He 
studied law and held several judicial offices, but his real 
interests were literary. He was very fond of the ballads 
of his native land, and his first publication was a collection 




WALTER SCOTT 75 









FACSIMILE OF WIS- VERSES OF SCOTT 



7 6 



THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM 



of these, with some of his own added, called Minstrelsy of 
the Scottish Border. This was followed by The Lay of the 
Last Minstrel, a long tale in verse, a sort of modern ballad. 
Its success encouraged Scott to write others ; Marmion and 
The Lady of the Lake made him the most popular poet of 
the time. After some years, however, the poems of Byron 






ENTRANCE HALL AT ABBOTSFORD 



caught the public fancy, and Scott turned to fiction. The 
consideration of his novels belongs later in this chapter ; 
it is sufficient to say here that they far outstripped his 
poems in popularity, and brought him a fortune in royalties. 
He was made a baronet, built a fine hall at Abbotsford, and 
entertained lavishly. But a publishing house in which he 
was a partner failed, with debts amounting to half a million. 
This sum Scott undertook to pay himself, and had actually 



LORD BYRON JJ 

paid more than half when his mind gave way under the 
strain, and his death shortly followed. 

His poetry, as has been said, made romantic poetry popu- 
lar. His talent as a story-teller was evident in these narra- 
tive poems ; their free swinging meter was well suited to 
his subjects, while the fine descriptions of Scottish scenery 
delighted many who had no patience with the calmer 
mood of Wordsworth. 

George Gordon, Lord Byron (i 788-1 824), was a writer 
whose stormy and romantic poetry reflected the impulses of 
a passionate nature. At school 
and at his university, Cambridge, 
he was known for his pride, his 
self-will, and his violent temper. 
His earliest book of poems was 
severely criticised by the Edin- 
burgh Review ; he replied by a 
fierce satire upon the Review, 
its editors, its contributors, and 
all whom it praised. ♦When he 
became of age, he went on an 
extended tour of Europe, visit- 
ing even Greece, Turkey, and 
the islands of the Mediterranean. 
The result was a long poem 
called Childe Harold. The hero, 
a young man who leaves England after a riotous life, is 
Byron himself. In his own words, the poet woke up one 
morning to find himself famous. The public was tired of 
Scott. The new poet, handsome, proud, romantic, noble, 
with an air of mysterious gloom, was a fascinating figure. 
Byron followed this success with a series of Oriental tales, 
such as The Corsair and The Siege of Corinth, full of 




78 THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM 

pirates, robber chieftains, and distressed beauties of the 
harem. He married an heiress, Miss Milbanke, who left 
him within a year. This aroused a storm of public indig- 
nation that drove Byron from England. The rest of his 
life was spent in Switzerland and Italy ; he wrote pro- 
fusely, and most of his best work was done at this time. 
The struggle of the Greeks for independence roused the 
better impulses of his nature ; he went from Italy with 
arms and money, eager to lead troops in the field ; but he 
was seized with fever and died at Missolonghi. 

Byron's fame to-day is far less than in his own time, 
though still considerable. CJiilde Harold is a singular 
mingling of description and reflection ; the poet stands on 
some famous spot, like the Coliseum or the field of 
Waterloo, his imagination kindles, and he describes the 
scene in picturesque and often passionate lines. It is a 
sort of glorified guide-book in verse, now and then rising 
to great poetry. His best shorter poems, The Dream, 
Darkness, Mazeppa, The Prisoner of Chillon, are more, 
finished, and have a unity that is lacking in Childe Haivld. 
Don Jna?i shows his power as a satirist. He wrote it 
smarting under the sentence of public opinion that had 
driven him into exile ; he took savage pleasure in ridicul- 
ing the moral standards of the society that had condemned 
him. His poetry as a whole shows the strength and the 
weakness of the man himself. It has tremendous power; 
but this power is fitful, and the patient revision to make 
work perfect is lacking. It is passionately independent; 
it is also moody, and at times debased. In its fierce as- 
sertion of individualism, its defiance of convention, it 
expresses fully one side of the Romantic spirit. 

We have seen the rise of this movement in the poets 
of the late eighteenth century; we have seen how Words- 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 



79 



worth and Coleridge strove in its behalf, and how finally 
in Scott and Byron it carried everything before it. To 
complete the story, it is necessary to notice the writings 
of two other poets, Shelley and Keats. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley (i 792-1 822), while a schoolboy at 
Eton, was nicknamed "mad Shelley " by the boys who 
could not understand his shy, dreamy nature. At Oxford 
his protest against the narrow 
theological spirit of the place s 

led to his expulsion. Almost at 
once he married Harriet West- 
brook, a schoolgirl of sixteen. 
He interested himself in the 
wrongs of the Irish people, and 
wrote pamphlets in their behalf. 
He was full of great projects 
for reforming the world. An 
admirer of Byron, he followed 
him to Italy, where he lost his 
life in a sailing accident. His 
poetry is of various kinds. A 
dramatic poem, Prometheus 
Unbound, expresses with great 
beauty his dreams of a glorious 
future for humanity. A drama, The Cenci, is a work of 
much power. But it is as a lyrical poet that he reached 
his highest achievement. In Adonais, an elegy, he mourns 
the death of his friend Keats with a splendor of poetry 
that gives this a place beside Lycidas as one of the great- 
est of English elegies. His odes, The West Wind, The 
Cloud, To a Skylark, in their very titles suggest the ethe- 
real nature of his poetry. His imagination was " all air 
and fire"; to him the cloud is alive, the moon an "orbed 




8o 



THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM 



maiden with white fire laden." His poems have a music 
that is heard in no other poet. The quick throbbing lines 
of the ode To a Skylark, the solemn strains of Adonais, 
the flutelike melody of To Night, mark Shelley as one of 
the greatest singers. 

John Keats (1795-182 1 ), unlike the other poets of this 
group, was not a university man. His father kept a livery 

stable. The son was educated as 
a surgeon, and practiced his pro- 
fession for several years. He 
studied poetry with delight, and 
published three slender volumes. 
These were very severely criti- 
cised in the Quarterly Review, 
and it was thought that these 
criticisms hastened Keats's death. 
In this belief Shelley wrote his 
Adonais, in which he called the 
critics murderers. It is now 
known that Keats's death was 
caused by consumption. His 
poetry is small in amount, but 
of precious quality. In En- 
dymion and Hyperion, two long narrative poems, he re- 
vives again the myths of ancient Greece, taking us back 
to a world of dewy freshness and beauty. The opening 
lines of Endymion are almost as well known as Shake- 
speare : 




A thing of beauty is a joy forever ; 

Its loveliness increases ; it will never^ 

Pass into nothingness, but still will keep 

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 

Full of sweet dreams and health, and quiet breathing. 



KEATS, MOORE, CAMPBELL 8 1 

The Eve of St. Agues is a tale of two lovers, told with such 
richness of description, appealing to all the senses at once, 
that its beauty is almost cloying. His great odes, espe- 
cially the Ode on a Grecian Urn, show the passionate quest 
for beauty seen in the lines quoted from Endymion. This 
is the key to all Keats's poetry, and in this he stands in 
marked contrast to Shelley. Much of Shelley's work was 
inspired by the desire to serve the world; he shows the 
influence of the Romantic Movement on its humanitarian 
side. In Keats the sole object is the creation of beauty, 
and his connection with the Romantic school is chiefly in 
such poems as La Belle Dame sans Merci, with its atmos- 
phere of mediaeval romance. 

There remain two poets of lesser note who do not belong 
to the Romantic group: Moore and Campbell. Thomas 
Moore (1779-185 2) was born in Dublin, educated at the 
university in that city, and going to London divided his 
time between the law and literature. He wrote some 
clever political satires, a number of songs, and several vol- 
umes in prose, of which a Life of Byron is the chief. 
Lalla RookJi is a narrative poem, like Byron's in having 
an Oriental setting, but substituting for the passion of 
Byron a sentimental note which was highly popular in its 
day. Moore is best remembered by his songs. His Irish 
Melodies and National Airs contain songs like Oft in the 
Stilly Night, which are excellent of their kind. 

Thomas Campbell (1 777-1 844) was born in Glasgow, 
attended Glasgow University,- and spent most of his life in 
Edinburgh. His poem The Pleasures of Hope, published 
when he was twenty-one, brought him some reputation, 
and he was able to support himself by literature. His 
Gertrude of Wyoming is a narrative poem based upon an 
incident of American history. He is known to-day by a 



82 THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM 

group of short poems, chiefly patriotic, including Hohenlin- 
den, The Battle of the Baltic, and Ye Mariners of England. 
By virtue of these he holds a tiny but secure niche in the 
poetic hall of fame. 

The Romantic period, in addition to its great poets, is 
noted for its novelists and essayists. The great novelist 
of the period, and one of the great novelists of all periods, 
was Walter Scott. It was a fortunate moment for English 
literature when he found in an old desk the manuscript of 
Waverley, begun years before, and decided to complete it* 
He was so doubtful of his success that he did not publish 
it over his own name. But he was not long in doubt. 
Since the days of Fielding there had been no great Eng- 
lish novelist, and the public, always hungry for a story, 
seized eagerly upon Waverley. Stimulated by success, 
Scott produced novel after novel with astonishing rapidity. 
Some of his books were written in six weeks. In fifteen 
years he wrote twenty-five long novels, besides criticism, 
biography, poetry, and miscellaneous writings. The dif- 
ferent characters in his stories number over a thousand ; 
he has created more imaginary persons than any other au- 
thor except Shakespeare. For convenience his novels may 
be divided into three groups. The first, beginning with 
Waverley, deals with Scottish life and character : among 
the best are The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of 
Lammermoor. The second group deals with English his- 
tory : IvanJwe and Kenilworth are the chief of these.. 
The third group deals with foreign history : The Talisman. 
and Quentin Dnrward are among the best. Scott is the 
creator of the historical novel. His wide knowledge of 
history enabled him to give a faithful and lively picture of 
the past. Not only was he the first historical novelist, but 
he was the greatest. He had many followers, — in England, 



SCOTT, AUSTEN, LAMB 83 

in America, in Germany, in France, in Italy, — but none of 
them has equaled the master. His success is due partly to 
his narrative power; partly to his skill in description, giving 
a clear and often a splendid background for his charac- 
ters ; partly to his humor, especially in the Scottish stories ; 
and partly to the wholesome, manly tone of all he wrote. 

At the same time that Scott was opening a new field 
for fiction in the romantic past, Jane Austen (1775-1817) 
was developing the novel of domestic life. She was the 
daughter of a clergyman in a country village, and always 
lived in the country or in country towns. She knew inti- 
mately the society of these places, with their young people 
interested in balls, their elders in gossip and match mak- 
ing, and she has drawn this for us with exquisite skill. 
There are no hairbreadth escapes nor thrilling climaxes in 
her stories ; the characters are people such as we meet 
every day; yet such is her art that the commonplace is 
made interesting. Scott paid a generous tribute to her, 
saying, " The big bow-wow style I can do myself, like any 
now going, but her delicate touch is beyond me." She is 
the successor of Richardson as a realist, and in construction 
of plot she surpassed him. Her best novels are Pride 
and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma. 

Among the essayists of the period two names are pre- 
eminent : Lamb and De Quincey. Charles Lamb (1775- 
1834) was the son of a poor London clerk. He was sent 
to Christ's Hospital, a famous boys' school, where he met 
Coleridge. He became a clerk, or, as we would say, a book- 
keeper, in the East India House, and was thus able to 
make literature a staff, not a crutch, for his support. 
There was a taint of insanity in the family, which showed 
itself in him only in certain eccentricities, but in his sister 
Mary it took a violent form. In one of her attacks she 



8 4 



THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM 



killed her mother. Lamb devoted his life to the care of 
this sister, who appears in the Essays as Bridget Elia. 
When an outbreak was approaching, he would go with 
her to an asylum ; after it was over, he brought her back 
to his home, where they lived among the books they both 
loved. In connection with his sister he wrote the Tales 
from Shakespeare, in which the stories of many plays are 

retold in simple prose. His fa- 
vorite reading was in the plays 
of the Elizabethan dramatists, 
and he published a volume of 
Specimens of English Dramatic 
Poets, containing choice extracts 
with brief but admirable com- 
ments. His chief work, how- 
ever, is in the two volumes 
called Essays of Elia. These 
were first published in maga- 
zines, and Lamb signed to them 
the name of a clerk in the office 
£&^f / where he worked. The essays 

CJs\'^ y ??l / ^ ~ >S deal with a11 kinds of topics: 
^^s there is a complaint of the de- 

cay of beggars in the city, a 
chapter on ears, a dissertation on roast pig, criticism on 
actors of the time, and so on. They are short, as short as 
Bacon's essays, but entirely different in tone, for Lamb is 
among the great humorists. His style is unique. His 
familiarity with old writers led him to use their words, 
so that a modern thought often peeps out from quaint old 
dress. His sentences often take an unexpected turn, 
sometimes humorous, sometimes serious where one ex- 
pected humor. His essays are among the best examples 




THOMAS DE QUINCEY 



85 



we have of what are called personal essays, i.e. those in 
which the author reveals himself. We learn his fondness 
for old china, his dislike of Scotchmen, his favorite books 
and walks and games. And the personality thus revealed 
is so charming that he has been called the best beloved of 
English writers. 

Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859), the " English opium- 
eater," was a strange, erratic being. As a boy he ran away 
from the Manchester Grammar 
School to find Coleridge, whom ^ 

he so admired that he gave him 
a good part of his fortune. He 
went to Oxford later, and finally 
settled in the Lake region, near 
Grasmere. Asked to write the 
story of his life for a magazine, 
he produced the famous Confes- 
sions of an Opium-Eater. In 
the next twenty years he wrote 
a great number of articles, chiefly 
on literature and philosophy. 
One of his papers is entitled 
Murder Considered as One of 
the Fine Arts ; it is a grimly 
humorous account of certain celebrated crimes. The 
Flight of a Tartar Tribe is an example of his imaginative 
power ; it purports to be a historical narrative, and really 
rests upon a basis of fact. But upon this basis De 
Quincey has built a fine superstructure of the imagination, 
adding details freely, until the finished account has the 
completeness of a great tragedy. His chief work is the 
Confessions and its sequel, the Suspiria de Profundis (Sighs 
from the Depths). In certain passages of these, where he 




'rfo?n4-<4 9~UGC(*hi,cey 



86 THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM 

describes the dreams that came to him under the influence 
of opium, his style has a music that reminds one of the 
harmonies of Milton, and an imaginative power that is 
hardly surpassed in English prose. He wrote prose with 
the splendor and music of poetry. 

READING FOR CHAPTER VIII 

Blake. — Introduction to Songs of Innocence. Songs : " How sweet I 
roamed" " My silks and fine array" The Lamb, Holy Thursday, 
Infant foy, The Angel, The Tiger, Ah I Sunflower, Proverbs, The 
Crystal Cabinet. 

Blake's poems are in Aldine and Muses series. 1 Selections in 
Ward, vol. iii ; Manly ; Oxford, and Pancoast. 

Cowper. — To Mary, The Castaway, On Receipt of ?ny Mothers 
Picture, John Gilpin's Ride, The Task, Bk. IV. 

Cowper 1 s poems are published in Aldine (3 vols.), Astor (1 vol.), 
National Library (2 vols.). Selected poems in Temple and Athenaeum. 
Representative selections in Ward, vol. iii ; Chambers, vol. ii ; Manly ; 
Warner, and Pancoast. 

Coleridge. — Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla Khan, Genevieve, 
Youth and Age, Hymn in the Valley of Chamoiuii. 

Coleridge's poems are in Globe, Muses, Everyman's, and Astor 
series. The Lectures on Shakespeare are in Everyman's Library. The 
Ancient Mariner complete and selections from other poems are in Page ; 
Ward, vol. iv ; Manly; Bronson ; Oxford, and Pancoast. Poems and 
criticism in Chambers, vol. iii, and Warner. 

Wordsworth. — Daffodils, Reverie of Poor Susan, Lines Written in 
Early Spring, Expostulation and Reply, The Tables Turned, We are 
Seven, Michael, Hart-Leap Well, " Three years she grew," To the 
Cuckoo, " She was a Phantom of Delight," The Solitary Reaper, Yar- 
row Unvisited, Ode to Duty, Tintern Abbey, Intimations of Immor- 
tality. Some of the Sonnets should be read, as : To Sleep, " Two voices 
are there," " The world is too much with us," " Milton ! thou shouldst 
be living" etc. 

1 For publisher and price of various editions, see p. 142. 



READING FOR CHAPTER VIII 87 

Wordsworth's poems are published in Aldine (7 vols.) and in 
1 vol. (small type) in Globe, Cambridge, and Astor series. The best 
poems are in the volume of selections edited by Matthew Arnold 
(Golden Treasury). Other volumes of selections in Athenaeum, and 
Everyman's Library. Tintern Abbey, the Ode oji Immortality, and 
shorter poems are in Page ; Ward, vol. iv ; Manly ; Warner ; Oxford ; 
Chambers, vol. iii, and Pancoast. 

Scott. — Novels, one of the following: Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, Old 
Mortality, Rob Roy, Guy Manner ing, Quentin Durward, The Talisman, 
Heart of Midlothian . 

Narrative poems : Marmion, or The Lady of the Lake. 

Shorter poems : Hunting Song, Maid of Neidpath, fock of Hazel- 
dean, Nora's Void, Pibroch of Donald Dhu, County Guy, The Bare- 
footed Friar. 

Scott's poems are in the Aldine edition (5 vols.), and in a single 
volume (small type) in Cambridge, Globe, and Astor series. Marmion 
and The Lady of the Lake are in National Library, The Lady of the 
Lake also in Handy Volume. Marmion and other poems in Page ; 
selections in Manly ; Pancoast ; Bronson, and Ward, vol. iv. 

The novels are published in Everyman's Library and numerous other 
editions. 

Byron. — Narrative poems: Prisoner of Chillon ; Mazeppa ; Childe 
Harold, canto III, stanzas 1-30 and 85-104, canto IV, stanzas 78-148 
and 177-185. Lyrics, etc.: " She walks in beauty? " When we two 
parted" The Destruction of Sennacherib, Maid of Athens, Stanzas for 
Music, The Isles of Greece, On this Day I Complete ?ny Thirty-sixth 
Year, Darkness. 

Byron's poems are published with full notes and introductions 
in 6 vols. (Scribner). Editions in 1 vol. (small type) are Cam- 
bridge, Globe, and Astor. The best of Byron's poetry, selected by 
Matthew Arnold, is in a volume of the Golden Treasury series. Se- 
lected poems with full notes in English Readings. Childe Harold is 
published separately in Temple, Astor, Handy Volume, and National 
Library. Copious selections in Page ; Ward, vol. iv ; Warner ; Bronson ; 
Pancoast, and Manly. 

Shelley. — To Night, To a Skylark, The Cloud, The West Wind, 
Osymaudias, The Indian Serenade, To fane — The Invitation, To fane 



88 THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM 

— The Recollection, To , A Lament, Stanzas written in Dejec- 
tion, The Sensitive Plant, Adonais. 

Shelley's poems are in Aldine edition (5 vols.), Everyman's (2 vols.). 
Single-volume editions are Oxford (Clarendon Press), Cambridge, 
Globe, Astor. Selected poems in Temple, Athenaeum, Golden Treas- 
ury, Handy Volume, and National Library. Adonais and many of the 
odes are in Page ; Ward, vol. iv ; Warner ; Manly ; Bronson ; Oxford, and 
Pancoast. Adonais also in Hales. Selected poems in Chambers, vol. iii. 

Keats. — The Eve of St. Agnes, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a 
Nightingale, La Belle Dame sans Merci, Fancy, To Autumn, " / stood 
tiptoe upon a little hill" " Bards of passion and of mirth" Sonnets : 
On Looking into Chapman's Homer, Last Sonnet, The Grasshopper 
and Cricket, The Human Seasons. 

Keats's poems are published in the Cambridge, Globe, Golden Treas- 
ury, Aldine, Temple, Muses, Astor, and Everyman's. Selected poems 
in Athenaeum, Handy Volume, and National Library. The Eve of 
St. Agnes and other poems are in Page ; Manly ; Bronson ; Oxford, and 
Pancoast ; selections also in Ward, vol. iv, and Warner. 

Lamb. — Essays of Elia, Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years 
Ago, New-Year's Eve, Dream-Children, Dissertation upon Roast Pig, 
Poor Relations, Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading, The Super- 
annuated Man, Old China. Letters: To Coleridge, Sept. 27, 1796; 
Dec. 2, 1796; To Southey, July 28, 1798; To Coleridge, Aug. 6, 1800; 
To Manning, Dec. 27, 1800 ; To Wordsworth, Sept. 28, 1805. 

Lamb's works, edited by Lucas, are published in 7 vols. (Putnam). 
The Essays of Elia are in Everyman's, Temple (2 vols.), and Universal 
Library. Talcs from Shakespeare in Everyman's and Handy Volume. 
Brief selections from Lamb in Warner; Pancoast, and Chambers, 
vol. iii. 

De Quincey. — From Confessions of an Opium-Eater : The Pleasures 
of Opium, The Pains of Opium ; or The English Mail Coach, sees. II 
and III ; or Suspiria de Profundis ; Savannah-la-Mar, and Levana. 

De Quincey's works are published in 12 vols. (Houghton). The 
Confessions of an Opium-Eater is in Temple, Everyman's, and 
Universal Library. Murder as a Fine Art and The English Mail Coach 
in National Library. Selections in Athenaeum series. Brief extracts 
in Warner ; Pancoast, and Chambers, vol. iii. 



READING FOR CHAPTER VIII 89 

Burns. — Songs : " Ae fond kiss? " O wert thou in the cauld blast? 
"John Anderson, my Jo? Highland Mary, " Is there, for honest pov- 
erty? " Ye flowery banks? " Green grow the rushes, O? " Of a" 1 the 
airts? "Scots, wha hae wi Wallace bled." 

Poems of nature : To a Mouse, To a Mountain Daisy, On seeing a 
Wounded Hare. 

Humor and satire : Duncan Gray, To a Louse, Address to the Unco 
Guid, Address to the Deil. 

Narrative and reflective : Tarn 0' Shanter, Epistle to a Young Friend, 
Cotter's Saticrday Night, A Bard^s Epitaph. 

Burns's poems are in Centenary edition (4 vols.) (Whittaker), in 
Temple classics (2 vols.) ; editions in one volume are Cambridge, Globe 
(includes "Letters), Everyman's Library, and Astor. Selections from 
Burns in Athenaeum series ; also in Ward, vol. iv ; Manly ; Oxford ; 
Pancoast, and Warner. 

Fuller treatment of the authors in this period may be found in 
C. H. Herford's The Age of Wordsworth (Macmillan), H. A. Beers's 
English Romanticism, XIX Century (Holt), G. Saintsbury's Nine- 
teenth Century English Literature (Macmillan), M. Arnold's Essays 
in Criticism (Macmillan), L. Stephen's Hoiirs in a Library (Putnam), 
E. Dowden's French Revolution and English Literature (Scribner), 
W. Pater's Appreciations (Macmillan) ; also the lives of Burns, Cole- 
ridge, Wordsworth, Scott, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Lamb, De Quincey, 
and Jane Austen in English Men of Letters series (Macmillan). 



CHAPTER IX 

THE VICTORIAN ERA 

Alfred Tennyson Thomas Carlyle W. M. Thackeray 

Robert Browning John Ruskin George Eliot 

T. B. Macau lay Charles Dickens R. L. Stevenson 

The name Victorian is applied to the period extending 
from 1830 to 1890, although Victoria did not come to the 
throne until 1837. ^ was a period of great changes in 
the social and political world, and these changes have been 
reflected in the literature. The social unrest, the protest 
against the hard and cheerless lot of the lower classes, is 
heard in poems like Hood's Song of the Shirt and Mrs. 
Browning's Cry of the Children; in Ruskin's essay, Unto 
this Last; in novels like Besant's All Sorts and Conditions 
of Men. Again, the diffusion of popular education, the 
establishing of public libraries, the cheapening of books, 
the multiplication of magazines and periodicals, have created 
a far larger reading public than in any previous era. And 
the literature produced in this period has been so great in 
amount, so varied in kind, and so excellent in nearly every 
kind, that the Victorian age stands beside the Elizabethan 
as one of the two greatest periods of our literary his- 
tory. It will be convenient for our purposes to take up 
the different writers in groups, beginning with the poets. 
Of these there are two of the first rank, Tennyson and 
Browning. 

90 



ALFRED TENNYSON 



91 



Alfred Tennyson (1809- 1892) was the son of a country 
clergyman in the village of Somersby, Lincolnshire. He 
had an early love for poetry, and in conjunction with his 
brother published some juvenile verses even before he 
went to college. At Cambridge 
University he took a prize for 
poetry, and formed a close 
friendship with Arthur Hallam. 
After leaving the university he 
lived for a time in London, then 
at various places in the country. 
He had few friends ; his time 
was divided between his books 
and long, solitary walks, during 
which he composed much of his 
poetry. His first important book 
was the Poems, chiefly Lyrical, 
which appeared in 1830. 

In 1832 he published another 
small volume, containing among 
other poems The Lady of Shalott and The May Queen. 
This book was very severely criticised in the Quarterly, 
the same journal that had been so hard upon Keats. The 
next year the poet suffered a great shock in the death of 
his friend Hallam. For ten years he published nothing; 
then in 1842 appeared two volumes of poems. One of 
these contained his earlier poems, very carefully revised, 
and with many poems omitted. The changes showed that 
Tennyson had profited by criticism. The second volume 
was new work, including some of his best poems, such as 
Ulysses, Locks ley Hall, the lyric Break, break, break, and 
Morte U Arthur. From this time the greatness of Tenny- 
son was recognized. In 1847 ne published The Princess, 







92 THE VICTORIAN ERA 

a long narrative poem dealing in a half-serious, half- 
humorous way with the question of the place of woman. 
In 1850 appeared In Memoriam, a long poem, or rather 
series of poems, called forth by the death of his friend 
Hallam. Two other events made this year memorable 
in his life : his marriage to Miss Emily Sellwood and his 
appointment as Poet Laureate, succeeding Wordsworth. 
Of the poems which he wrote in this official capacity, The 
Charge of the Light Brigade and the Ode on the Duke of 
Wellington are best known. In 1855 he published a long 
poem called Maud. It was the poet's favorite of his 
works, but has never been popular with his readers. In 
1859 appeared four of the Idylls of the King, a series of 
narrative poems dealing with the legends of King Arthur 
and his Knights of the Round Table. Later the poet added 
others to the series, making twelve in all. Last of all, he 
attempted the dramatic form, writing six plays, but although 
Irving put Becket and The Cup on the stage, they were not 
successful. In 1884 he was raised to the peerage, with the 
title of Baron. He continued to write to the close of his 
life without any loss of poetic power ; Crossing the Bar 
was written in his eighty-first year. 

Theodore Watts, an English critic, has grouped poets 
into two classes : poets of energy and poets of art. The 
one class is noted for power, originality, creative ability ; 
the other for perfection of workmanship, exquisite in every 
detail. Tennyson belongs among the poets of art. It was 
his custom to revise his poems with the greatest care. If 
we compare the earliest form of The Lady of Shalott with 
its present form, we shall find that scarcely half of the 
stanzas remain as first published. Whole passages are 
added, whole stanzas omitted, the order of the words is 
changed, — all showing the poet's anxious quest for perfec- 



ALFRED TENNYSON 93 



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JlHlenf®iaht. ,V T'J£ 



°c 

J k>iunf 3C J low fcJlcMrll. , 
*?*> ,**( WiU "JHi fitth. 

fy ft* ^.^^ fe ^ 

FACSIMILE OF TENNYSQN'S MS. OF "THE THROSTLE" 



94 THE VICTORIAN ERA 

tion. He was gifted with a delicate ear for the fine har- 
monies of speech, and in his lyric poems beauty of expres- 
sion and beauty of sound are wedded. Among his finest 
examples in this kind are the songs in The Princess, includ- 
ing Sweet and Low and Tears, Idle Tears. He was, like 
Milton, a diligent student of literature, and there are in his 
works many echoes of classical poets. But he studied 
nature as closely as he studied books. No poet, not even 
Wordsworth, saw more clearly or described more truly the 
appearance of nature. A pool reflecting the setting sun 
he describes as 

Round as the red eye of an eagle-owl. 

On almost every page may be found such examples of in- 
timate and accurate knowledge of nature. His range is 
wide: he has written lyrical, narrative, and dramatic 
poetry. He can be delicately fanciful, as in The Merman, 
humorous, as in The Northern Farmer, or nobly indignant, as 
in Maud; he can express a nation's grief, as in the Ode on 
the Duke of Wellington, or treat the deepest problems of 
our life, as in the stanzas of In Memoriam. The final es- 
timate of him will probably be that of E. C. Stedman, who 
calls him " all in all, the fullest representative of the refined, 
speculative, complex Victorian Age." 

Robert Browning (18 12-1889), who shares with Tennyson 
the highest place among the poets of this period, was born 
in Camberwell, a suburb of London. He was educated 
in private schools, and, guided by a father of literary tastes, 
read widely in ancient and modern literature. Before 
he was twelve he had written a little volume of poems 
which was never published. His early volumes, Paracelsus 
and Sordello, were almost unnoticed by the public, though 
they gained him recognition among his fellow-poets. In 



ROBERT BROWNING 



95 



1846 he married Elizabeth Barrett, who was already 
well known as a poet, and went to live in Italy. Here 
the next fifteen years of his life were spent, chiefly in 
Florence, in a wedded life that never lost its romance. In 
this period much of Browning's best work was done, includ- 
ing the volumes called Dramatic Romances, Dramatic Lyrics, 
and Men and Women. In 1861 Mrs. Browning died, and 
the poet returned to London, where he worked for some 
years on his great poem, The 
Ring a7id the Book. In the 
meantime his poetry had been 
gradually growing into public J| 
favor. Societies were formed / : :Z ig, ; 

for the study of his works, and g| 
honorary degrees were conferred |% 
upon him by the universities of 
Oxford and Cambridge. Like 
Tennyson he continued writing 
to the close, his last volume, 
Asolando, appearing in London 
on the day of his death. 

If Tennyson represents the fy^mr isfcrtytWH^I t 
poet of art, Browning stands for 

the poet of energy. In sheer bulk his work is greater 
than that of almost any other English poet. His master- 
piece, The Ring and the Book, is twice as long as Paradise 
Lost. He is among the most original of our poets ; he 
developed a new form of writing, the dramatic monologue, 
and achieved a style which is, fortunately, unique. He 
has been vigorously assailed, as vigorously defended, and 
while not the most read, is certainly the most discussed 
poet of the Victorian age. His lack of popularity is 
due to several things, the chief being that in form and 




9 6 



THE VICTORIAN ERA 



style he is so unlike other poets that at first he is puz- 
zling. 

The dramatic monologue is the form he usually employs. 
In this there is a single speaker, but we are made aware 
of the presence of others. The poem My Last Duchess is 
a good example of his method. It begins abruptly ; the 
speaker is a Duke who is about to marry a second time ; 




BROWNING'S HOME IN VENICE 



to the envoy who comes to arrange the marriage he gives 
a brief account of his last Duchess. In doing so he re- 
veals, quite unconsciously, his own character : his love of 
art, his pride, his selfishness, and his cruelty. In this 
power to lay bare the very souls of his characters Brown- 
ing stands without a rival. These characters are usually 
shown to us at some crisis in their lives, some supreme 
moment which reveals the real man. He is interested not 



ROBERT BROWNING 97 

in events but in personalities ; he does not tell stories but 
analyzes motives. Now this, however skillfully done, 
appeals to the thoughtful few, not to the many. In style, 
too, Browning's peculiarities repel at first. He makes no 
effort to sing lullabies to his readers, but rather stings 
their minds into activity with some abrupt or puzzling 
phrase. He said that he never intended his poetry to 
serve to an idle man as a substitute for a cigar after dinner ; 
he must be wrestled with to get at his meaning. And what 
is the prize that one gains ? In the first place, to read 
Browning is an intellectual tonic. The very difficulties 
stimulate mental activity. Again, once his poetry is 
grasped, it yields keen delight. He has a vividness of 
description that is like the lines of an etching ; he can 
command at times a music as sweet as Tennyson's; he 
loves nature, and sings her praises like any lark. But 
these qualities are found in other poets. What is distinctive 
in Browning is his power of showing the hidden springs of 
motive which determine action, in analyzing character, — 
now a bishop, now an impostor, now a criminal, showing 
in each the man as he seems to others and the man as he 
is before God. 

Subtlest assertor of the soul in song. 

is the word of a brother poet. And in all this the mood 
of Browning is one of triumphant optimism. He holds 
that life is good ; old age but completes youth, death is 
but the gateway to life, higher, fuller, than we have ever 
known. He is thus one of the great spiritual teachers of 
the age. In poems like Rabbi Ben Ezra and Saul he treats 
the theme of eternal life, not in the mood of half-doubt 
that is often heard in Tennyson, but affirming with splendid 
certainty, 

Thy soul and God stand sure. 



98 THE VICTORIAN ERA 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) was known as a 
poet earlier than her husband. The story of her marriage 
is one of the romantic chapters in English literature. In 
girlhood she had injured her spine, and was for years an 
invalid, occupied in study and writing, seeing but a few 
intimate friends. Robert Browning read and admired her 
poems, and sought to know her. Their friendship was 
opposed by her father, but Browning overcame all obsta- 
cles, planned a secret marriage, and carried his bride away 
to Italy. Here her health improved rapidly, and the two 
poets lived an almost ideal life, each an inspiration to the 
other. As a poet Mrs. Browning wrote best when under 
the influence of some strong feeling. The Cry of the 
Children is her plea for the poor little factory slaves in 
England ; in Casa Guidi Windows she pours forth her 
sympathy for Italy in its struggle for freedom, and in the 
famous Sonnets from the Portuguese she tells the story of 
her own heart. So deep and intimate is this revelation 
that she attempted to conceal its real nature by giving it a 
title which suggested that the poems were merely a transla- 
tion, but such was not the case. The Sonnets are her 
highest achievement in poetry, and are among the notable 
sonnet-sequences in English literature. With them 
should be read Browning's poem One Word More, ad- 
dressed to his wife in dedicating to her a volume of his 
best poems. 

Matthew Arnold (1822- 1888) is chiefly known as an 
essayist, but he belongs among the poets as well. He 
was the son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, master of Rugby, 
known through Thomas Hughes's description in Tom 
Brown's School Days. After his education at Rugby and 
Oxford he became an inspector of schools. He was 
appointed Professor of Poetry at Oxford, which position 



THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 



99 



he held ten years. Among his principal poems are The 
Forsaken Merman, a delicately beautiful and imaginative 
poem, with a music such as one might fancy rings in sea 
bells; Thyrsis, a lament for his friend, Arthur Hugh 
Clough; and SoJirab and Rustum, a narrative poem. This 
deals with a famous hero of Persian legend ; it tells an 
interesting story, and the closing 
passage is one of great beauty. 

In prose writing the Victorian 
age has many great names ; in 
the essay, in history, and in fic- 
tion its achievement has been 
notable. Of the essayists the 
chief are Macaulay, Carlyle, 
Ruskin, and Arnold. Thomas 
Babington Macaulay (i 800-1 859) 
was born in London of well- 
to-do parents, and, one might al- 
most say, born a man of letters. 
He could read before he was 
three, and was writing poetry at 
eight. He read almost every- 
thing he could get hold of, and his marvelous memory en- 
abled him to retain what he read almost in the words of 
the author. He once said that if by some catastrophe 
every copy of the New Testament, The Pilgrim's Progress, 
and Paradise Lost were destroyed, he could reproduce all 
three books from memory. At Cambridge University he 
speedily won distinction by his learning and his power as a 
debater. After leaving college a reverse in his father's 
circumstances obliged him to turn to writing for an income. 
In 1825 he published in the Edinburgh Review an essay 
on Milton which made him famous. He was sent to Par- 




100 THE VICTORIAN ERA 

liament, and achieved success as an orator, rising to a place 
in the cabinet. But his interests were with literature, and 
he gladly welcomed the time when he could leave public 
office and undertake a work he had long planned, — a 
history of England. He did not live to complete this ; 
in fact his History covers scarcely twenty years, yet its 
sale has been greater than any other work of the kind 
ever published. His writings include poetry, essays, and 
history. The Lays of Ancient Rome is a collection of 
stirring ballads, one of which, Horatius, has always been 
a favorite with young readers. His essays, chiefly on 
literary or historical topics, fill three volumes. Macaulay's 
great stores of information and his clear, forceful style 
made him easily the most popular essay writer of his 
time. In his History of England the same qualities made 
history almost as entertaining as fiction. His power of 
describing a scene or a personage is remarkable. His 
strong partisan feeling — he was a Whig — sometimes 
makes him a little unfair ; but in the general grasp of his 
subject, in the power of handling a mass of details while 
keeping the main points clearly before you, and above 
all in the amazing fullness of his knowledge, his History is 
unique. 

Thomas Carlyle (1795-188 1), one of the most consider- 
able men of letters of the period, was the son of a stone- 
mason in the little Scotch village of Ecclefechan. But 
poverty never keeps a Scotch boy from an education, and 
in time young Thomas walked the ninety miles to Edin- 
burgh and entered the university. After his course 
there he became a teacher ; then tried, with little success, 
to write for magazines. He married Jane Welsh, a clever 
and ambitious woman, and soon after went to live at 
Craigenputtock, a place which he described as " the most 



THOMAS CARLYLE 10 1 

desolate spot in the British dominions." Here he studied 
hard, and wrote Sartor Resartus, his first notable book. 
Later he removed to London and there wrote most of his 
historical works, of which The French Revolution is the 
chief. He slowly won recognition as a writer, and in 
1866 was honored by being elected Lord Rector of the 
University of Edinburgh. But in the same year his wife 
died, and her loss affected him deeply. His strength de- 
clined, and though he lived till 

1 88 1, he wrote nothing more of jj g j fe^. 

importance. His books fall nat- dm lj^ 

urally into two classes : histories jm mk 

and essays. The histories in- M Wmk 

elude The French Revolution, a 
L ife of Cromwell, and the History I WmKm f ' 

of Frederick the Great. He had a 
wonderful power of making real 
and vivid these figures of the 
past. His imagination makes us 
see the French Revolution as if 
we crouched behind the barri- 
cades in the streets of Paris ; his exf (* 1 I 
"portrait-painting" eyes make ^^vC/b^iC; \~&sr\£y, 
the figures of Robespierre and 

Danton stand out boldly from his pages. Of his eight 
volumes of essays, the most significant are Heroes and 
Hero- Worship and Sartor Resartus. The central idea of 
Heroes and Hero- Worship is that " Universal history is at 
bottom the history of the great men who have worked 
here." This idea is developed by taking first the hero 
as divinity, as seen in the Norse Odin ; the hero as 
prophet, Mahomet; as poet, Dante and Shakespeare; as 
priest, Luther and Knox ; as man of letters, Johnson and 




102 THE VICTORIAN ERA 

Burns ; as king, Cromwell and Napoleon. These studies 
of great men show Carlyle's power of entering into sym- 
pathy with men of widely different types and understand- 
ing them all. He describes people, as did Macaulay ; 
but while Macaulay tells with great exactness how people 
looked and what they did, Carlyle tells what they were. 
This power to go below the surface, to seek the reality 
beneath the outward appearance, is most clearly shown 
in Sartor Resartus, a strange, difficult, yet inspiring book. 
The title means The Tailor Re-tailored, and the book sets 
forth in a fantastic way a philosophy of clothes. Carlyle 
points out that the difference between a king and a 
beggar is largely one of clothes, and then develops the 
idea further : everything we see is but the symbol of 
what lies beneath it ; our bodies are but the clothes of 
the spirit, and the world itself is the Garment of God. The 
book purports to be a translation from the German, and 
this gives Carlyle an excuse for writing in a curious style, 
with sentences broken or inverted, new word-compounds, 
and frequent capitalization. One other point is noteworthy 
in Carlyle : his constant attitude of giving warning or 
advice. He saw the England of his time absorbed in 
commercial success, and following, he thought, false 
theories of economics, false ideals in society. Against 
these things he protested with all his power. He shares 
with Ruskin the honor of being one of the great reformers 
of the century. 

John Ruskin (18 19-1900), the third of the great essayists 
of the period, was born in London, the son of a wealthy 
wine merchant. He passed a strange childhood, having no 
young playmates, and being brought up very strictly. But 
his parents were fond of good books and good pictures ; they 
read aloud in the evenings, and the boy listened to Scott 



JOHN RUSKIN 



103 



and Shakespeare and Byron. In the summer they took 
journeys through England and Scotland, seeing the pictur- 
esque parts of the country and visiting the great picture 
galleries. At seventeen he was sent to Oxford. His 
parents intended him for the 
church, but the love of art was 
so strong in him that he deter- 
mined to devote his life to study 
and criticism. His first book, 
Modem Painters, a work in five 
volumes, was largely a defense of 
Turner as the greatest of land- 
scape painters ; it showed that 
Ruskin was undoubtedly the 
greatest of English art critics, 
and led to his appointment as 
Professor of Fine Arts at Ox- 
ford. He made frequent visits 
to Italy, and in his Seven Lamps 
of Architecture and Stones of 
Venice he wrote of the principles 
of architecture as he had of painting. In these books he 
attempted to educate the British people to an appreciation 
of true art. But as he grew older he came to believe that 
art was not a thing that could be taught separately, but 
that it was the expression of the sound moral life of a 
nation. He saw, as Carlyle had seen, the mass of the 
English people indifferent to higher interests, worshiping 
"the Britannia of the Market-Place, the Goddess of 
Getting-On." No great art is possible from such a nation, 
he held, and so he turned aside from his favorite themes 
to become a social reformer, writing books in which he 
tried to set forth the true relation between workingmen 




104 THE VICTORIAN ERA 

and employers, the rights of property, and other economic 
questions. These volumes nearly all bore fantastic titles 
which gave no indication of their contents, such as Fors 
Clavigera, Unto this Last, and Munera Pulveris. But 
Ruskin did not confine his efforts to writing ; he established 
libraries and art schools, he organized movements for better 
dwellings for the poor, and gave great sums of money to 
establish a cooperative community where art and industry 
should go together. His last book, Prceterita, is the story 
of his own life. 

Ruskin, like Carlyle, is a reformer, and the writings of 
most reformers are short-lived. Ruskin's work survives 
because he was more than a reformer. He possessed a 
remarkable power of description, particularly of objects in 
nature. He learned to draw as a child, and continued to 
make sketches all his life, thus cultivating a habit of close 
and accurate observation. His parents' training had given 
him an early love for beauty, in nature and in art. Add 
to this that he possessed the imagination of a poet, and it 
will be easy to understand why his descriptions of moun- 
tains, of clouds, of rock and flower and tree, are unequalled 
in the whole range of English literature. These descrip- 
tions are scattered through his Modern Painters ; the best 
of them are collected into a single volume with the title 
Froiides Agrestes. No one who cares for the beauty of 
nature can afford to be ignorant of this book. Another of 
his shorter books is Sesame and Lilies, containing a famous 
lecture on how and what to read. The Crown of Wild 
Olive is a good introduction to Ruskin's ideas on modern 
business and society. 

Matthew Arnold, whose poetry was discussed earlier in 
this chapter, has a place also as one of the distinctive 
essayists. He wrote on various topics, literature, national 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 105 

ideals, and theology, — but his best work was in the field of 
literary criticism. He was familiar with the literatures of 
Greece, Rome, France, Germany, and Italy, besides that of 
England, and so was able to criticise literature comparatively, 
discussing the characteristics of French literature in general 
as compared to English literature, or comparing a noted 
English poem with a similar work in Greek or Italian. He 
wrote a number of brief essays on English poets of the 
Romantic school, such as Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and 
Keats. His Essays in Criticism, in two volumes, contain 
the best of his work ; his Discourses in America has a noted 
article on Emerson. 

Arnold closes our survey of the essayists. In history 
the Victorian age shows a marked advance over its prede- 
cessors. The work of Macaulay and Carlyle has already 
been mentioned. To these two other names should be 
added: Edward A. Freeman (1823-1892) and John 
Richard Green (1 837-1 883). Freeman chose for his field of 
investigation the Norman Conquest ; he gave to it almost a 
lifetime of study, and the resulting Histoiy of the Norman 
Conquest is the standard work on that subject. Green was 
less of a profound scholar, but he had a picturesque way 
of writing history that made him more popular than any 
other historian except Macaulay. His Short Histoiy of 
the English People is for the general reader the best brief 
account of English history. 

We have considered the poets, the essayists, and the 
historians of this era. In all these there are illustrious 
names, yet the most significant literary form of the period 
is none of these : it is fiction. This is due partly to the 
fact that this period contains three novelists, Dickens, 
Thackeray, and George Eliot, whose work has become 
classic. Partly owing to the success of these writers, 



106 THE VICTORIAN ERA 

fiction has become by far the most widely-read form of 
literature. Reports of libraries show that considerably 
more than two thirds of all the books taken out are works 
of fiction. The novelist has taken advantage of this fact 
and made his story a means of appealing to popular senti- 
ment to plead a cause or redress a wrong. Again, the 
field of fiction has grown vastly wider. In the eighteenth 
century an English novel was a story of English people, 
in England ; in the nineteenth century it may be a story 
of Canada or Australia or India or the South Sea islands, 
introducing, along with English people, odd native types 
of character. Then too the range of subjects has grown 
broader. The earlier novels dealt with adventure or love- 
making or the ordinary social relations of the English mid- 
dle class; in this period we have added the political novel, 
the study of crime, the religious novel, the novel of social- 
ism, and the like. In a word, the whole complex civiliza- 
tion of our time, with its new social problems, its shifting 
religious beliefs, its new political questions, its wrongs and 
doubts, its hopes and plans for human betterment, — all are 
mirrored, more or less faithfully, in the fiction of the time. 
In the early part of the period the chief names are those 
of Edward Bulwer Lytton (i 803-1 873) and Charlotte 
Bronte. Lytton serves to connect this period with the 
preceding, as he was a contemporary of Scott's. He 
wrote copiously and enjoyed great fame in his day ; he 
is now remembered chiefly by his Last Days of Pompeii, 
a historical romance of the school of Scott. He wrote 
also two very successful plays, which still hold the stage : 
Richelieu and The Lady of Lyons. Charlotte Bronte 
(1816-1855), like Lytton, is known by a single book : Jane 
Eyre. Her home was in a desolate part of Yorkshire, and 
in her stories bleak moors, storm-tossed trees, and gloomy 



CHARLES DICKENS 



107 



mansions make a fit setting for the play of human passions 
she portrays. Jane Eyre is a girl such as no novelist 
before had ever chosen for a heroine : she is poor, plain, 
and a governess; the hero, if we may call him such, is 
equally unlike the typical hero of romance. Yet the story 
is one of unquestioned interest and power. 

Charles Dickens (18 12-1870) was the son of a poor clerk 
at Portsmouth. When Charles was nine, the family re- 
moved to London, and the next 
year the father was placed in 
prison for debt. The boy went 
to work in a warehouse, sleeping 
under the counter, and spending 
Sundays with his family in Mar- 
shalsea prison. Later he had a 
few years of schooling, and was 
employed as a lawyer's clerk. 
He studied shorthand and be- 
came a newspaper reporter. In 
this capacity he wrote humorous 
sketches of London life, and fol- 
lowed these with another series 
on a larger scale, called The 
Pickwick Papers. This book at 
once made him known. Novel after novel followed, and be- 
fore he was thirty Dickens was the most popular writer 
of his generation. He was an incessant worker, editing 
magazines and giving public readings from his works, 
in addition to writing with great rapidity. The constant 
strain wore him out, and he died at fifty-eight. He was 
given the honor of a burial in Westminster Abbey. 

Dickens is the novelist of the English lower classes. 
The upper class of English society he scarcely knew, and 




&tfat&rt)u,Vl6&4 



108 THE VICTORIAN ERA 

his descriptions of them are poor. But the lower middle 
class, the small tradesmen and clerks, the butcher and baker 
and candlestick-maker, he knew by daily contact. And the 
class below this, the impostors, the petty thieves, the body- 
snatchers, these he knew too. Those Sundays in Marshal- 
sea prison and the years of life in the poorest surroundings 
gave him the materials for Little Dorrit and David Copper- 
field. His first book, Pickwick Papers, was purely humor- 
ous ; his second, Oliver Tzvist, was a melodrama, with the 
villain a bloody villain and the hero and heroine almost too 
good to be true. In his third book, Nicholas Nickleby, 
melodrama and humor were mingled, and this continued to 
be the method of Dickens. His characters, like those of a 
melodrama, are not quite the people of real life ; they are 
worse, or better, or more amusing, than the people we 
know. For this reason Dickens is called a caricaturist, 
meaning that he exaggerates certain features. From this 
very fact his characters have come to stand for certain types : 
as Mr. Pecksniff for hypocrisy, Mr. Micawber for cheerful 
shiftlessness. The hardships of Dickens's early life gave 
him a keen sympathy for human suffering. When he be- 
came a novelist, he tried to right wrongs by calling public 
attention to them through his stories. The wretched con- 
ditions then existing in private boarding schools are shown 
in Nicholas Nickleby ; the mismanagement of poorhouses 
in Oliver Twist. Dickens's stories usually have little plot ; 
an exception to this is The Tale of Two Cities. This is his 
only historical novel; the two cities are London and Paris, 
at the time of the French Revolution. The group of shorter 
tales called Christmas Stories, including The Cricket on the 
Hearth, The Chimes, and The Christmas Carol, show Dick- 
ens's cheerful sentiment, his humor, and a touch of the fan- 
tastic which was characteristic of his work. Perhaps his 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



109 



greatest strength lies in description. His books are a great 
picture gallery of odd, lovable, fantastic people, set in sur- 
roundings of tumble-down houses or quaint old inns ; you hear 
the song of the teakettle or the moaning of the wind described 
as no other writer has described it ; ghostlike shapes come 
and go ; it is as if you were looking at a great theatrical 
spectacle, and you laugh or cry as you follow the play. He 
has amused and cheered the hearts of English readers as 
has no other writer of his time. 
William Makepeace Thackeray 
(1811-1863), the second great 
novelist of the period, was born 
in Calcutta, the son of an Eng- 
lish civil service official. He 
was taken to England as a child, 
and educated at the Charter 
House School and at Oxford. 
He studied law for a time ; then 
went to Paris to study art. Re- 
verses of fortune obliged him to 
earn his living, and he returned 
to London to write for news- 
papers and magazines. He was 
a contributor to Punch, the fa- 
mous humorous weekly. Not until he was forty-five did he 
discover his true field, the novel. In Vanity Fair, a story 
of English society, he made his first success. This was fol- 
lowed by four other long novels, and by the volumes entitled 
The Four Georges and English Humorists of the Eighteenth 
Century. His home life was sad : early in his married life 
his wife's mind gave way, and she never recovered. His 
later years were cheered by the companionship of his 
daughter, now Mrs. Ritchie, who has edited his works. 




\JjAm/SL*osAz<*j^ 



110 THE VICTORIAN ERA 

Thackeray is the novelist of the upper class of English 
society, as Dickens is of the lower class. At college and 
afterwards his associates were professional men, men of 
letters, members of the aristocracy, and "society" people. 
When he became a novelist he described in Vanity Fair 
and Pendennis this world he knew. It was a brilliant 
world, with its witty, cultured people, its imposing social 
structure with royalty at the top, — a glittering spectacle in- 
deed. Yet it was not altogether a lovely world ; the best 
qualities of mind and heart counted for nothing beside 
social success. It had its impostors and cheats, and the 
lords and ladies, nay royalty itself, were sometimes very 
pitiful creatures. His comment upon it all is — Vanity Fair. 
In Henry Esmond he turned aside from the present day 
and drew a picture of life in the eighteenth century, a pic- 
ture so true that it ranks as one of the greatest historical 
novels in English. In The Nezucomes, a. later novel, as 
if to make amends for his early satire on society, he 
drew a portrait at full length of a true-hearted, noble gentle- 
man, Colonel Newcome. Thackeray learned the art of 
fiction from an earlier master, Henry Fielding. From him 
he adopted the practice of occasionally turning aside 
from the story to comment upon his characters, or to chat, 
as it were, with his readers on other topics. From Fielding, 
too, Thackeray learned the art of plot construction. Dick- 
ens's stories are apt to be rambling, and incidents are in- 
troduced which have little or no relation to the main story. 
But Thackeray's stories have a plot in the sense that a play 
has a plot. In his treatment of characters, also, Thackeray 
differs from Dickens. He does not exaggerate ; he tries 
to make his people as much like those of real life as pos- 
sible ; the incidents in his stories appeal to us as probable 
and natural. From this faithfulness in making his mimic 



GEORGE ELIOT 



III 




world a true picture of the real world, Thackeray is classed 
among the great realists in fiction. 

George Eliot (18 19-1880), whose real name was Mary 
Ann Evans, is the third of the group of great novelists. 
She was born in Warwickshire, 
on a farm of which her father 
was manager, and her early years 
were passed among country peo- 
ple. She was a great reader, 
and since no colleges were open 
to women at that time, educated 
herself with the help of tutors. 
She could read seven languages, 
and was an eager student of 
science and philosophy. She 
wrote articles for the Westmin- 
ster Review, and became one of 
its editors. This took her to 
London, where she met the 
leading intellectual men of the time. She became the 
wife of George Henry Lewes, and at his suggestion tried 
her hand at fiction, writing a series of sketches called Scenes 
of Clerical Life. Encouraged by the success of these she 
produced her first novel, Adam Bede. The freshness of 
this picture of rural life, the rich humor and the pathos of 
the story, delighted the novel-reading public and settled the 
question of George Eliot's career. Her next novel, The 
Mill on the Floss, contains much that is autobiographical; 
Maggie Tulliver, with her love for her books and for her big 
brother, is George Eliot herself. She traveled in Italy, 
and planned a great historical novel dealing with the time 
of Savonarola. After years of study the book was written : 
Romola. Of her later works, MiddlemarcJi is the chief. 



^rv^e^^^Ur^* 



1 12 THE VICTORIAN ERA 

George Eliot is the novelist of English rural life. Like 
Dickens and Thackeray, she wrote best when dealing with 
the people and scenes she had known. Silas Marner i one 
of her shorter books, is typical of her work. In the first 
place, it impresses one as true to life. The events are 
probable, the characters such as one might find in many 
an English village. George Eliot is therefore a realist. 
Again, the chief interest in the book is not the story, but 
the development of character. Silas Marner, a young man 
of a trusting nature, is deeply wounded by the treachery of 
a friend. He goes to new surroundings, and there, shunned 
by every one, leads a lonely and selfish life. Suddenly 
and strongly this is broken by the coming of the child Ep- 
pie ; in caring for her he is gradually brought back into 
sympathy with his fellow-men. There the book ends, for 
the character-development is complete. And finally, the 
book conveys a moral lesson. Godfrey Cass's weakness 
leads him to disown his child Eppie ; in after years he 
tries to make amends and seeks to win the affection of his 
daughter, but it is too late. In all her books George Eliot 
teaches, quietly but not less convincingly, her belief that 
the transgression of moral laws brings its punishment not 
hereafter but in this life. 

The three authors just discussed are the leading writers 
of fiction in this period. There are however many others, 
some of them too important to be passed over even in a 
brief survey. Such are Charles Reade, Anthony Trollope, 
Charles Kingsley, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Charles 
Reade (18 14-1884) is likely to be remembered as the 
author of The Cloister and the Hearth, a historical novel 
which some critics place close to Henry Esmond. It is a 
remarkably vivid picture of life in Germany in the Mid- 
dle Ages, and has the merit of strict historical accuracy. 



TROLLOPE, KINGSLEY, STEVENSON 



113 



Peg Woffington is a clever story of the stage. In Never 
Too Late to Mend Reade followed in the footsteps of 
Dickens, writing a novel with a purpose, in this case to 
expose the cruelties of prison discipline in England. 

Anthony Trollope( 18 15- 1882) may be called the novelist 
of English clerical life, or, more specifically, of the cathe- 
dral town. His best novels, The Warden, Barchester 
Towers, Framley Parsonage, and The Last Chronicle of 
Barset, deal with bishops and bishops' wives, archdeacons 
and poor curates, and all the society that centers about the 
established church. They are remarkable for their fidelity 
to English character. H awthorne 
said of Trollope, " He is as 
English as a beefsteak." 

Charles Kingsley ( 1 8 1 9- 1 8 7 5 ) , 
author of a number of books of 
indifferent merit, wrote two 
which are among the notable 
historical novels. Hypatia is a 
brilliant romance of Alexandria 
at the time that city was a world- 
capital. Westward Ho ! is a stir- 
ring story of England at the 
time of the' defeat of the 
Spanish Armada. 

Robert Louis Stevenson (18 50- 
1894) almost deserves a place among the essayists of the 
time. His early books, An Inland Voyage and Travels 
with a Donkey, are delightful sketches of travel. In Vir- 
gi?iibus Pnerisque he writes on various themes, from falling 
in love to the fear of death, with a grace and humor that 
suggest what a delightful talker he must have been. He 
achieved success in fiction with Treasure Island, a thrilling 




ftj^X^itezz: 



TV* 



114 THE VICTORIAN ERA 

story of adventure. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a curious 
and powerful story, deals with the two natures in man. 
The evil nature of Dr. Jekyll becomes a person, Mr. Hyde, 
and struggles fiercely for the mastery. The theme is a 
new one in fiction, and Stevenson's handling of it is intensely 
dramatic. Kidnapped, David Balfour, and The Master of 
Ballantrae are all romantic tales. Stevenson cares nothing 
about redressing social wrongs or teaching moral lessons 
or portraying life exactly as it is ; he is neither reformer 
nor moralist nor realist. His purpose is to tell a good 
story ; he is a romancer pure and simple. 

Rudyard Kipling (1865- ), one of the best-known 
writers of the present time, was born in Bombay, India, of 
English parents. Educated in England, a journalist in 
India, a traveler in Canada and South Africa, a resident 
for some years in the United States, he gained a wide 
knowledge of men and things. His first book, Plain Tales 
from the Hills, short stories of India, attracted attention by 
the freshness of its subject and by its crisp, graphic style. 
Other volumes of short stories, In Black and White and 
Life's Handicap, showed that Kipling knew his India, 
both native and European, and could make others see it, 
from its steaming rice fields and hot, queer-smelling jungles 
to the silent peaks of the Himalayas. He showed also the 
power to tell a story with a swiftness and directness that 
went straight to the mark. The two Jungle Books contain 
some of the most marvelous and fascinating beast stories 
ever written. His later books of short stories, The Day's 
Work and Traffics and Discoveries, show his remarkable 
power of imparting life to whatever he writes of. In A 
Walking Delegate the characters are the horses on a Ver- 
mont farm; in .007 they are locomotives, which under his 
hand become instinct with life. He has written several 



RUDYARD KIPLING I I 5 

novels. Captains Courageous is a favorite boys' book, while 
Kim is a vivid picture of native life in India. 

In poetry also Kipling's achievement is noteworthy. 
Barrack-Room Ballads are the songs of the British soldier. 
Some of them, such as Danny Deever and Mandalay, sing 
themselves into the memory forever. In the volume 
called The Seven Seas Kipling interpreted the lure, the 
might, and the tragedies of ocean as had not been done 
before in English poetry. In The Five Nations he is the 
poet of imperial England, chanting the glories of her 
world-wide sway and the praise of the great colonial 
nations who call England mother. Yet he realizes that 
power is not all, and in the solemn Recessional, with its 
burden " Lest we forget," he has written one of the great 
poems of Victorian England. 

Kipling closes our survey of the Victorian era, and of 
the story of English literature. But the story itself is not 
finished ; it is still being written. From the presses of 
publishers thousands of books are issued every year; the 
new poetry and plays and especially the new fiction is 
thrust upon us so persistently that we are in no danger of 
forgetting it. The danger is rather that in the flood of new 
books, so attractive to the eye, and so loudly proclaimed 
to be works of great genius, we may neglect the older 
writers upon whom time, the surest critic, has set his 
approval. When one tries to recall the popular novels of 
last year or the year before, and sees how soon they are 
forgotten, it is a satisfaction to turn again to the great 
masters, with the assurance that as long as the Anglo- 
Saxon race endures, these men who have interpreted its 
life in literature will endure also. 



Il6 THE VICTORIAN ERA 



READING FOR CHAPTER IX 

Tennyson. — Lyrics and descriptive poems: Lady of Shalott, The 
Day Dream, Sir Lancelot a?id Queen Guinevere, Sir Galahad, Mariana* 
songs from The Princess. Narrative: Dora, Enoch Arden, Lancelot 
and Elaine (in Idylls}. Reflective poems: " Break, break, break,' 1 '' 
The Poet, Ode on the Duke of Wellington, Merlin and the Gleam, Crossing 
the Bar. From In Memoriam : Prelude and Sees, xi, xiv, xxvii, 1-lv, 
lxvii, lxxiii, lxxxv, lxxxvi, xevi, cvi, exx, exxx. 

Tennyson's poems, with the author's notes, are published in 6 vols. 
(Macmillan). Single-volume editions are Globe, Cambridge, Astor. 1 
Selected poems in Athenaeum, Golden Treasury, Everyman's, Temple, 
Muses Library. Idylls of the King and In Memoriam are published 
separately in Handy Volume and Astor. Copious selections in Page ; 
Warner ; Manly ; Bronson ; Oxford ; Pancoast, and Stedman. 

Browning, Robert. — Narrative poems : How they brought the Good 
News, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Herve Riel, The Flight of the 
J ^uchess. Lyrical and dramatic ; Evelyn Hope, Garden Fancies : I, 
The Laboratory, The Lost Mistress, Meeting at Night, Love among 
the Ruins, The Last Ride Together, One Word More, Home-Thoughts, 
fro?n Abroad, Home-Thoughts, from the Sea, The Lost Leader, My 
Star, Cavalier Tunes. Character studies : My Last Duchess, The 
Bishop Orders his Tomb, Andrea del Sarto. Reflective poems : Pro- 
spice, Abt Vogler, House, Epilogue to Asolaudo, Said, Rabbi Ben Ezra. 
Dramas : Pippa Passes. 

Browning's poems, with notes and introductions, are published in 
12 vols. (Crowell). Editions in very small type are the Globe (2 vols.) 
and Cambridge (1 vol.) . Browning's own selections from his poems are 
published in Handy Volume and Astor. Other volumes of selections 
are in Temple, Muses, and Everyman's Library. Copious selections in 
Page ; Manly ; Warner ; Stedman, and Pancoast. 

Browning, E. B. — The Sleep, Cowper^s Grave, The House of Clouds, 
The Mask, The Cry of the Children, A Musical Instrument, Mother 
and Poet, Sonnets from the Portuguese, especially Nos. i, v, x, xiv, 
xviii, xxviii, xxxviii, xlii. 

Mrs. Browning's poems are published in Cambridge and Astor edi- 
tions. Selected poems in Handy Volume. Page gives Sonnets from 
1 For publisher and price of various editions, see p. 142. 



READING FOR CHAPTER IX 1 17 

the Portuguese complete and other poems ; selections also in Ward, 
vol. iv, Manly; Warner, and Stedman. 

Arnold. — Poems: Sohrab and Rustum, The Forsaken Merman, 
The Buried Life, Memorial Verses, Shakespeare, Requiescat, Worldly 
Place, Self-Dependence^ A Wish, Rugby Chapel. Essays: On the 
Study of Poetry, in Essays in Criticism, 2d series ; also in Ward's 
English Poets, vol. i, Introduction, and in Pancoast's English Prose. 

Arnold's poems are in Globe, Muses, and Astor series; selected 
poems in Temple. The Essays are in Eversley series (Macmillan), 
and in Everyman's Library. Selections from poetry in Page ; Manly ; 
Bronson ; Warner ; Oxford ; Stedman, and Pancoast. 

Macaulay. — Essays : Life of fohnson and Lord Clive, or fohn 
Bunyan and Warre7i Hastings. History of England, vol. i, Chap. III. 
Poems : Lays of Ancient Rome : Horatius, Virginia. 

Macaulay's works are published in 8 vols. (Longman). The Essays 
are in Temple (5 vols.) and Everyman's Library (2 vols.). The His- 
tory is in Everyman's Library (3 vols.). Lays of Ancient Rome in 
Temple and National Library. Extracts from Macaulay's prose in 
Craik, vol. iv, and Warner. 

Carlyle. — Heroes and Hero- Worship, Lecture V, or Sartor Resar- 
tus, Bk. I, Chap. Ill ; Bk. II, Chaps. VII and IX. 

Both these books are in Athenaeum, Temple, Everyman's, Universal, 
and Handy Volume series. Selections from Carlyle in Warner. 
Carlyle's complete works are published in 30 vols. (Scribner). 

Ruskin. — Sesame and Lilies, Lecture I ; Crown of Wild Olive, 
Introduction and Lecture I. Frondes Agrestes, Sees. Ill and IV. 

Ruskin's works are published in 20 vols., Brantwood edition (Long- 
man). Sesame and Lilies in Everyman's and Handy Volume series ; 
Crown of Wild Olive and Frondes Agrestes in Handy Volume. Modem 
Painters in Everyman's Library. Selections from Ruskin, in Students' 
series (Sanborn) and Standard Classics (Ginn) ; also in Warner. 

Dickens. — One of the following : David Copperfield, Pickwick 
Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son, Oliver Twist, Tale of Two 
Cities, Old Curiosity Shop, Our Mutual Friend. 

There are many editions of Dickens, an inexpensive one is in Every- 
man's Library. The Standard edition (Macmillan, 20 vols.) is illus- 
trated. 



Il8 THE VICTORIAN ERA 

Thackeray. — One of the following : Vanity Fair, Pendennis, The 
Virginians, Henry Esmond, The Newcomcs. 

The biographical edition of Thackeray has introductions by Thack- 
eray's daughter (Harper, 13 vols.). Henry Esmond and Vanity Fair 
are in Everyman's and Temple. 

Eliot. — One of the following: Silas Mar?ier, Mill on the Floss, 
Adam Bede, Middlejnarch. 

George Eliot's works are published in 12 vols. (Harper). Adam 
Bede and Silas Marner are in Temple and Everyman's. Pomola also 
in Everyman's. 

Stevenson. — Novels, one of the following : Treasure Island, Dr. 
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Master of Ballantrae, Kidnapped. Essays : 
Virginibus Puerisque. Poems : ChiWs Garden of Verses. 

Stevenson's works, with biographical introductions by his wife, are 
published in 25 vols. (Scribner). Treasure Island is in Everyman's. 
The poems are in Handy Volume and Astor series. 

Kipling. — Prose: From The Phantom Rickshaw : The Man who 
would be King. From The fungle Book : Kaa^s Hunting. From The 
Day^s Work : .ooy, The Brushwood Boy. Poems : Barrack-Boom 
Ballads, The Seven Seas. 

Kipling's complete works are published in 20 vols., Outward Bound 
edition (Scribner) ; also in Swastika edition (Doubleday, Page). 

For fuller treatment of the writers in this period, see E. C. Stedman's 
Victorian Poets (Houghton), G. Saintsbury's Nineteenth Century 
English Literature (Macmillan), F. Harrison's Early Victorian Litera- 
ture (Lane), W. C. Brownell's Victorian Prose Masters (Scribner), 
H. Walker's The Age of Tennyson (Macmillan). For Tennyson: 
S. Brooke's Tennyson, His Art and His Relatio?i to Modern Life 
(Putnam), H. Van Dyke's The Poetry of Tennyson (Scribner), and 
the Me?noir by A. Hallam Tennyson (Macmillan). For Browning: 
Alexander's Introduction to Brow7iing (Ginn), E. Dowden's Studies 
in Literature (Scribner), G. W. Cooke's Guidebook to Browning 
(Houghton). See also lives of Tennyson, Browning, Macaulay, 
Carlyle, Ruskin, Dickens, Thackeray, and Eliot in English Men of 
Letters series (Macmillan). 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

Geoffrey Chaucer 

Truth is the highest thing that man may kepe. 

Canterbury Tales. 

Full wise is he that can himselven knowe. 

Canterbury Tales. 

Joy of this world for time will not abide ; 
Fro day to day it chaungeth as the tide. 

Canterbury Tales. 

Edmund Spenser 

The noblest mind the best contentment has. 

Faerie Queene. 

For he that strives to touch a star, 
Oft stumbles at a straw. 

Shepherd' 1 s Calendar. 

Christopher Marlowe 

Honor is purchased by the deeds we do. 

Hero and Leander. 
Epitaph 

Weep not for Mortimer, 
That scorns the world, and as a traveler 
Goes to discover countries yet unknown. 

Edward II. 

O. thou art fairer than the evening air. 
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars. 

Doctor Faustus. 
119 



120 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 



William Shakespeare 

The fashion wears out more apparel than the man. 

Much Ado about Nothing. 

O, it is excellent 
To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous 
To use it like a giant. 

Measure for Measure. 

Every one can master a grief but he that has it. 

Much Ado about Nothing. 

Nought's had, all's spent, 

Where our desire is got without content. 

Macbeth. 

Give sorrow words ; the grief that does not speak 
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. 

Macbeth. 

I count myself in nothing else so happy 
As in a soul remembering my good friends. 

Richard II. 

Sweet are the uses of adversity, 

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head ; 

And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 

Sermons in stones, and good in everything. 

As You Like It. 

Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye ; 
Kissing with golden face the meadows green, 
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. 

Sonnets. 

He is well paid that is well satisfied. 

Merchant of Venice. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 121 

O gentlemen, the time of life is short ! 

To spend that shortness basely were too long 

If life did ride upon a dial's point. 

Still ending at the arrival of an hour. 

Henry IV, Part I. 

How poor are they that have not patience! 

Othello. 

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds, 
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. 

Sonnets. 

All things are ready if our minds be so. 

Henry V. 

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below ; 
Words without thoughts never to Heaven go. 

Hamlet. 

Our doubts are traitors, 
And make us lose the good we oft might win 
By fearing to attempt. 

Measure for Measure. 

Young men's love then lies 
Not truly in their hearts but in their eyes. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. 

Hamlet. 

Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. 

Romeo and Juliet . 

The course of true love never did run smooth. 

Midsummer Nighfs Dreain. 

How far that little candle throws his beams ! 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

Merchant of Venice. 



122 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

All the world's a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players. 
They have their exits and their entrances, 
And one man in his time plays many parts. 

As You Like It. 

Cowards die many times before their deaths, 
The valiant never taste of death but once. 

Julius Ccesar. 

Had I but served my God with half the zeal 
I served my king, he would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies. 

King Henry VIII. 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be ; 
For loan oft loses both itself and friend, 
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 
This above all : to thine own self be true, 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. 

Hamlet. 

There is a tide in the affairs of men 

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ; 

Omitted, all the voyage of their life 

Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 

Julius Ccesar. 

These our actors, 

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and 

Are melted into air, into thin air ; 

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, 

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 

The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 

As dreams are made on ; and our little life 

Is rounded with a sleep. 

The Tetnpest. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 123 

Ben Jonson 

Here was she wont to go! and here ! and here ! 

Just where these daisies, pinks and violets grow ; 

The world may rind the Spring by following her, 

For other print her airy steps ne'er left. 

Her treading would not bend a blade of grass, 

Or shake the downy bluebell from his stalk ! 

But like the soft west wind she shot along 

And where she went, the flowers took thickest root, 

As she had sowed them with her odorous foot. 

The Sad Shepherd. 

Francis Bacon 

I have often thought upon death, and I find it the least of all evils. 

Essays: Of Death. 

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs 
to, the more ought law to weed it out. 

Essays : Of Revenge . 

Virtue is like a rich stone, — best plain set. 

Essays: Of Beauty. 

Men in great place are thrice servants, — servants of the sovereign 
or state, servants of fame, and servants of business. 

Essays : Of Great Place. 

Some books are to be tasted, others swallowed, and some few to be 
chewed and digested. 

Essays : Of Studies. 

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an 
exact man. 

Essays: Of Studies. 

Izaak Walton 

Angling is somewhat like poetry, — men are to be born so. 

The Coinpleat Angler. 

Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never 
be fully learnt. 

The Compleat Angler. 



124 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 



John Milton 

He that has light within his own clear breast 
May sit i' the center and enjoy bright day ; 
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts 
Benighted walks under the midday sun ; 
Himself is his own dungeon. 



Comus. 



Mortals, that would follow me, 
Love Virtue, she alone is free ; 
She can teach you how to climb 
Higher than the sphery chime ; 
Or, if Virtue feeble were, 
Heaven itself would stoop to her. 



Comus. 



God doth not need 
Either man's work or his own gifts ; who best 
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state 
Is kingly ; thousands at his bidding speed, 
And post o'er land and ocean without rest ; 
They also serve who only stand and wait. 

Sonnet : On His Blindness. 

Come and trip it as you go 
On the light fantastic toe. 

L Allegro. 

I walk unseen 
On the dry smooth-shaven green 
To behold the wandering moon 
Riding near her highest noon, 
Like one that had been led astray 
Through the heavens 1 wide pathless way ; 
And oft, as if her head she bowed, 
Stooping through a fleecy cloud. 

// Penseroso. 

The mind is its own place, and in itself 
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. 

Paradise Lost. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 1 25 

With grave 
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed 
A pillar of state ; deep on his front engraven 
Deliberation sat, and public care ; 
And princely counsel in his face yet shone, 
Majestic though in ruin : sage he stood, 
With Atalantean shoulders, fit to bear 
The weight of mightiest monarchies ; his look 
Drew audience and attention still as night 
Or summer's noontide air. 

Paradise Lost. 

Robert Herrick 

Night Piece : To Julia 

Her eyes the glow-wonn lend thee, 
The shooting stars attend thee ; 

And the Elves also, 

Whose little eyes glow 
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. 

No Will-o'-the-wisp mislight thee, 
Nor snake nor slow-worm bite thee, 

But on, on thy way 

Without making a stay, 
Since ghost there's none to affright thee. 

Let not the dark thee cumber : 

What though the moon does slumber ? 

The stars of the night 

Will lend thee their light 
Like tapers clear without number. 



George Herbert 

Dare to be true : nothing can need a lie ; 

A fault which needs it most grows two thereby. 

The Church Porch. 



126 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

John Dryden 

Errors like straws upon the surface flow ; 

He who would search for pearls must dive below. 

All for Love. 

Great wits are sure to madness near allied, 
And thin partitions do their bounds divide. 

Absalom and Achitophel. 

Better to hunt in fields for health unbought 
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. 
The wise for cure on exercise depend ; 
God never made his work for man to mend. 

Epistle to J. Dryden. 

Jonathan Swift 

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for becoming emi- 
nent. 

Thoughts. 
'Tis an old maxim in the schools 
That flattery's the food of fools ; 
Yet now and then your men of wit 
Will condescend to take a bit. 

Cadenus and Vanessa. 

Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old. 

Thoughts. 

The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies 
spend their time in making nets, not in making cages. 

Thoughts. 

And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears 
of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where 
only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind and do more 
essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put 
together. 

Gulliver's Travels. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 1 2J 

Joseph Addison 

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week. 

Spectator. 

A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body. 

Spectator. 

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind. 

Spectator. 

The truth of it is, a woman seldom asks advice before she has bought 
her wedding gown. 

Spectator. 

'Tis not in mortals to command success. 

But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it. 

Cato. 

The soul, secured in her existence, smiles 
At the drawn dagger and defies its point. 
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years ; 
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, 
Unhurt amidst the war of elements, 
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds. 



Cato. 



Oliver Goldsmith 



In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, 

For e'en though vanquished he could argue still ; 

While words of learned length and thundering sound 

Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around ; 

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew 

That one small head could carry all he knew. 

The Deserted Village. 

The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had 
gained a new friend ; when I read over a book I have perused before, 
it resembles the meeting with an old one. 

Essays. 



128 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 



Alexander Pope 

'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none 
Go just alike, yet each believes his own. 

Essay on Criticism. 

To observations which ourselves we make 
We grow more partial for th' observer's sake. 

Mora/ Essays. 

"Tis education forms the common mind ; 
Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined. 

Moral Essays. 

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, 
All but the page prescribed, the present state. 

Essay on Man. 

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul. 

Essay on Man. 

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan ; 
The proper study of mankind is Man. 

Essay on Man. 

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As to be hated, needs but to be seen : 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 

Essay on Ma?i. 

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, 
As those move easiest who have learned to dance. 

Essay on Criticism. 

If to her share some female errors fall, 
Look on her face, and you'll forget them all. 

The Rape of the Lock. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 1 29 



Samuel Johnson 

It is worth a thousand pounds a year to have the habit of looking on 

the bright side of things. 

BoswelVs Life of Johnson. 

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first 

overcome. 

Rasselas. 

To him that lives well, every form of life is good. 

Rasselas. 

Cultivate your mind, if you happen to have one. 

Letters. 

Knowledge is of two kinds : we know a subject ourselves or we know 
where we can find information upon it. 

BoswelVs Life of Johnson. 

Always remember that the fate of the unfortunate may become your 
own. 

Rasselas. 

William Cowper 

An idler is a watch that wants both hands, 
As useless if it goes as if it stands. 

Retirement. 

Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much ; 
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. 

The Task. 

I would not enter on my list of friends 

(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, 

Yet wanting sensibility) the man 

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 

The Task. 

How much a dunce that has been sent to roam 
Excels a dunce that has been kept at home. 

Progress of Error. 



130 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

William Blake 

The fox condemns the trap, not himself. 

Proverbs. 

There is a moment in each day that Satan cannot find. 

Proverbs. 

I give you the end of a golden string, 

Only wind it into a ball ; 
It will lead you in at Heaven's gate 

Built in Jerusalem wall. 

Fragments. 

Thomas Gray 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 

Await alike the inevitable hour, 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. 

Full many a gem of purest ray serene 

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; 

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. 

Do you not think the mind has more room in it than most people 
seem to think, if you will but furnish the apartments? 

Letters. 

On Milton 

He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time : 
The living throne, the sapphire blaze, 
Where angels tremble while they gaze, 
He saw ; but blasted with excess of light, 
Closed his eyes in endless night. 

The Progress of Poesy. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 131 



Robert Burns 

But human bodies are sic fools, 
For a' their colleges and schools, 
That when nae real ills perplex them, 
They make enow themselves to vex them. 

The Twa Dogs. 

Had we never loved sae kindly, 
Had we never loved sae blindly, 
Never met, or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted! 

Ae Fond Kiss. 

To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile 

Assiduous wait upon her, 
And gather gear by every wile 

That's justified by honor. 
Not for to hide it in a hedge 

Not for a train-attendant, 
But for the glorious privilege 

Of being independent. 

Letter to a Young Fiietid. 

A prince can make a belted knight, 

A marquis, duke, and a 1 that ; 
But an honest man's aboon his might, 

Guid faith, he maunna fa' J that. 

For a* That and a" 1 That. 

To see her is to love her, 

And love but her forever ; 
For nature made her what she is, 

And ne'er made sic another! 

Bonnie Lesley. 

But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ; 
Or like the snowflake in the river, 
A moment white, then melts forever. 

Tam 0' Shanter. 
1 May not claim. 



132 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
Epitaph on an Infant 

Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade, 

Death came with kindly care ; 
The opening bud to Heaven conveyed, 

And bade it blossom there. 

To a Lady 

I have heard of reasons manifold 

Why Love must needs be blind, 
But this the best of all I hold — 

His eyes are in his mind. 

What outward form and features are 

He guesseth but in part ; 
But what within is good and fair 

He seeth with the heart. 

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely defini- 
tions of prose and poetry, that is : prose, words in their best order ; 
poetry, the best words in their best order. 

Lectures on Shakespeare. 

William Wordsworth 
She dwelt among the untrodden ways 

She dwelt among the untrodden ways 

Beside the springs of Dove, 
A maid whom there were none to praise, 

And very few to love ; 

A violet by a mossy stone 

Half-hidden from the eye ! 
Fair as a star, when only one 

Is shining in the sky. 

She lived alone, and few could know 

When Lucy ceased to be ; 
But she is in her grave, and, O, 

The difference to me ! 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 1 33 

The primal duties shine aloft like stars ; 
The charities that soothe and heal and bless 
Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers. 

The Excursion. 

That best portion of a good man's life — 
His little, nameless, unremembered acts 
Of kindness and of love. 

Personal Talk. 

My heart leaps up when I behold 

A rainbow in the sky ; 
So was it when my life began, 
So is it now I am a man, 
So be it when I shall grow old, 

Or let me die. 

My Heart leaps Up. 

A creature not too bright or good 
For human nature's daily food ; 
For transient sorrows, simple wiles, 
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles. 

She was a Phantom of Delight. 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 

Hath elsewhere had its setting, 
And cometh from afar. 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 

From God, who is our home : 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy. 

Ode on Immortality . 

To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 

Ode on Immortality. 

A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays 
And confident to-morrows. 

The Excursion. 



134 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 



Charles Lamb 

The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and 
have it found out by accident. 

Letters. 



The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is 
composed of two distinct races : the men who borrow and the men 
who lend. 

Essays of Elia. 

Presents, I often say, endear absents. 

Essays of Elia. 

Sir Walter Scott 



Oh what a tangled web we weave 
When first we practice to deceive 



Breathes there the man with soul so dead 
Who never to himself hath said 

This is my own, my native land ! 

****** 

If such there breathe, go, mark him well! 
For him no minstrel raptures swell ; 
High though his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, — 
Despite those titles, power, and pelf, 
The wretch, concentered all in self, 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And, doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust from whence he sprung 
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung. 



Marmion. 



Marmion. 



Oh, many a shaft at random sent 

Finds mark the archer little meant! 

And many a word at random spoken 

May soothe or wound a heart that's broken ! 

The Lady of the Lake. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 1 35 



George Gordon Byron 

Here's a sigh to those who love me, 

And a smile to those who hate ; 
And whatever sky's above me, 

Here's a heart for every fate. 

To Thomas Moore. 

'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark 

Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home ; 

'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark 
Our coming, and look brighter when we come. 

Don Juan. 

Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow. 

Childe Harold. 

I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women, 
And pity lovers rather more than seamen. 

Don Juan. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley 

We look before and after, 

And pine for what is not ; 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught ; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 

To a Skylark. 

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the hap- 
piest and best minds. 

A Defence of Poetry. 

Peace, peace ! He is not dead, he doth not sleep ; 

He hath awakened from the dream of life. 
'Tis we who lost in stormy visions, keep 

With phantoms an unprofitable strife. 
He has outsoared the shadows of our night; 

Envy and calumny, and hate and pain, 
And that unrest which men miscall delight, 

Can touch him not and torture not again. 

Adonais. 



136 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

John Keats 

The great end 
Of poetry, that it should be a friend 
To soothe the cares and lift the thoughts of men. 

Sleep and Poetry. 

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all 
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 

Ode on a Grecian Urn. 

William M. Thackeray 
A man is seldom more manly than when he is what you call un- 
manned. English Humourists. 

We view the world with our own eyes, each of us ; and we make from 
within us the world we see. English Humourists. 

" 'Tis not the dying for a faith that's so hard, Master Harry, — every 
man of every nation has done that, — 'tis the living up to it that is 
difficult." Henry Esmond. 

Thomas Carlyle 

Great men are punctuation marks in the text of time. 

Inscription at Winchester School. 

Sarcasm I now see to be in general the language of the devil. 

Sartor Resartus. 

The end of man is an Action, and not a Thought. 

Sartor Resartus. 

The history of the world is but the Biography of great men. 

Heroes and Hero-Worship. 

The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none. 

Heroes and Hero- Worship. 

Do the Duty which lies nearest thee, which thou knowest to be a 
Duty ! Thy second Duty will already have become clearer. 

Sartor Resartus. 

We are all poets when we read a poem well. 

Heroes and Hero- Worship . 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 1 37 

All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been : it is lying in 
magic preservation in the pages of books. 

Heroes and Hero- Worship. 

Matthew Arnold 

For we are all, like swimmers in a sea, 

Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate, 

Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall. 

And whether it will heave us up to land, 

Or whether it will roll us out to sea, 

Back out to sea, to the deep wave of death, 

We know not, and no search will make us know ; 

Only the event will teach us in its hour. 

Sohrab and Rustum. 

We have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us. 

Essays in Criticism. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

Behind no prison grate, she said, 
Which slurs the sunshine half a mile, 

Live captives so uncomforted 
As souls behind a smile. 

The Mask. 

There's nothing low 
In love, when love the lowest : meanest creatures 
Who love God, God accepts while loving so. 

Sonnets from the Portuguese. 

Mark, there. We get no good 
By being ungenerous, even to a book, 
And calculating profits — so much help 
From so much reading. It is rather when 
We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge 
Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, 
Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth, — 
'Tis then we get the right good from a book. 

Aurora Leigh. 



138 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 



Robert Browning 

Have you found your life distasteful ? 

My life did and does smack sweet. 
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful ? 

Mine I saved and hold complete. 

I find earth not gray but rosy, 

Heaven not grim, but fair of hue. 
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy. 

Do I stand and stare? All's blue. 

At the "Mermaid.' 1 '' 

'Tis not what man does which exalts him, but what man would do ! 

Saul. 

My own hope is, a sun will pierce 

The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ; 

That, after Last, returns the First, 

Though a wide compass round be fetched ; 

That what began best, can't end worst, 

Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst. 

Apparent Failure. 

I count life just a stuff 
To try the soul's strength on. 

In a Balcony. 

Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, . 

Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal or woe ; 
But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear ; 

The rest may reason and welcome, 'tis we musicians know. 

Abt Vogler. 

When the fight begins within himself, 
A man's worth something. 

Bishop Blotigra7rts Apology. 

All service ranks the same with God, 
With God, whose puppets, best and worst, 
Are we : there is no last nor first. 

Pippa Passes. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 1 39 

John Ruskin 

If in our moments of utter insipidity we turn to the sky as a last 
resource, which of its phenomena do we speak of ? One says it has 
been wet ; and another, it has been windy ; and another, it has been 
warm. Who among the whole chattering crowd can tell me of the 
forms and the precipices of the chain of tall white mountains that girded 
the horizon at noon yesterday ? Who saw the narrow sunbeam that 
came out of the South and smote upon their summits until they melted 
and mouldered away in a dust of blue rain? Who saw the dance of the 
dead clouds when the sunlight left them last night and the west wind 
blew them before it like withered leaves ? All has passed away, unre- 
gretted as unseen. 

Frondes Agrestes. 

Life being very short and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to 
waste none of them reading valueless books. 

Sesame and Lilies. 

George Eliot 

Our tongues are little triggers which have usually been pulled before 
general intentions can be brought to bear. 

Middlemarch. 

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see 
nothing but sand ; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them 
when they are gone. 

Scenes of Clerical Life. 

However strong a man's resolution may be, it costs him something 
to carry it out, now and then. We may determine not to gather any 
cherries, and keep our hands sturdily in our pockets, but we can't pre- 
vent our mouths from watering. 

Adam Bede. 

Old men's eyes are like old men's memories, they are strongest 
for things a long way off. 

Ro?nola. 

The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the 
purpose he sees to be best. 

Felix Holt. 



140 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

We are apt to measure ourselves by our aspirations instead of our 
performances. 

Conversations. 

In the old days there were angels who came and took men by the 
hand and led them away from the City of Destruction. We see no 
white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threaten- 
ing destruction : a hand is put into theirs which leads them forth 
gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they no more look back- 
ward ; and the hand may be a little child's. 

Silas Marner. 

Alfred Tennyson 

Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs. 
And the thoughts of man are widened with the process of the suns. 

Locksley Hall. 

I am a part of all that I have met. 

Ulysses. 

Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 

Tis only noble to be good. 
Kind hearts are more than coronets. 

And simple faith than Norman blood. 

Lady Clara Vere de Vere. 

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might ; 
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight. 

Locksley Hall. 

I held it truth, with him who sings 
To one clear harp in divers tones, 
That men may rise on stepping-stones 

Of their dead selves to higher things. 

In Memoriam. 

He makes no friend who never made a foe. 

Idylls of the King. 

God's finger touched him, and he slept. 

In Memoriam. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 141 

The poet in a golden clime was born, 

Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 

The love of love. 

The Poet. 

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, — 
These three alone lead life to sovereign power. 

CEnone. 

This is truth the poet sings, 
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. 

Locksley Hall. 

A lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright ; 
But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight. 

The Grandmother. 

So many worlds, so much to do, 
So little done, such things to be. 

In Memoriam. 

If thou shouldst never see my face again, 

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice 

Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 

For what are men better than sheep or goats 

That nourish a blind life within the brain, 

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 

Both for themselves and those who call them friend. 

For so the whole round earth is every way 

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 

Idylls of the King. 



BOOKS AND EDITIONS REFERRED TO 
IN READING LISTS 

Volumes of Selections 

Bronson, W. C, English Poems, Nineteenth Century. Selections 
from the chief writers only, with brief notes. Other volumes to follow, 
covering earlier periods, i vol., $i. University of Chicago Press. 

Chambers's Cyclopedia of English Literature. Three large volumes, 
containing biographical and critical accounts of nearly all English 
writers, with brief extracts from their works. Illustrated with portraits. 
Set, 3 vols., $15. J. B. Lippincott Co., Phila. 

Craik, H., English Prose. Includes writers from fourteenth century 
to present time, giving selections, with biographical and critical 
prefaces. A companion set to Ward's English Poets, but less valuable, 
as the selections are seldom complete. 5 vols., $1.10 per volume. 
Macmillan Co., N. Y. 

Hales, J. W., Longer English Poems. Selections from Spenser to 
Keats, with notes. 1 vol., $1.10. Macmillan Co., N. Y. 

Manly, J. M., English Poetry, 1 170-1892. Gives in a single large 
volume sufficient selections to represent the whole course of English 
poetry. No notes nor biographies. The best single-volume collection. 
$1.50. Ginn & Co., Boston. 

Oxford Book of English Verse. Selections, chiefly lyrical, from 
1250-1900, chosen by A. T. Quiller-Couch. No notes. 1 vol., $1.90. 
Clarendon Press, N. Y. 

Page, C. H., British Poets of the Nineteenth Century. Includes 
only the chief writers, but gives nearly 100 pages of selections from 
each author. Valuable also for the lists of reference books in biography 
and criticism for each author. 1 vol., $2. B. H. Sanborn, Boston. 

142 



BOOKS AND EDITIONS REFERRED TO 1 43 

Pancoast, H. S., Standard English Poems. From Spenser to Ten- 
nyson ; full notes. 1 vol., $1.50. Henry Holt & Co., N. Y. 

Standard English Prose. From Bacon to Stevenson, with 

notes. 1 vol., $1.50. Henry Holt & Co., N. Y. 

Stedman, E. C, Victorian Anthology. Includes English, Irish, and 
Colonial poetry of the period ; several hundred authors represented, 
usually by several short poems. Brief biographies in Appendix. Val- 
uable as showing range and quality of Victorian poetry. 1 vol., $2.50. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 

Ward, A. W., English Poets. Covers English poetry from Chaucer 
to — but not including — the Victorian period. Biographical and criti- 
cal introductions by eminent critics. Selections full and well chosen. 
A valuable collection. 4 vols., $1 per volume. Macmillan Co., N. Y. 

Warner, C D., Library of WorWs Best Literature. Covers foreign 
as well as English and American literature. Extracts from all authors, 
prefaced by brief biography and criticism. Many portraits. 30 vols. 
R. S. Peale and J. A. Hill, N. Y. 



Standard Editions of English Authors 

Aldine Poets. Includes nearly all English poets except Victorian 
writers. Complete editions, with biographical introductions. 70 vols., 
75 cents per volume. Macmillan Co., N. Y. 

Athenmmi Press Series. Complete works and volumes of selections, 
carefully edited, with introductions, notes, and bibliographies. Excel- 
lent where it is desired to make careful study of an author. 30 vols., 
60 cents to $1.40 per volume. Ginn & Co., Boston. 

Astor Poets. English and American poets, usually complete edi- 
tions, with portrait and introduction. 95 vols., 60 cents per volume. 
T. Y. Crowell & Co., N. Y. 

Cambridge Poets. English and American poets, complete works, 
with engraved portrait and introduction. A desirable library edition. 
20 vols., $2 per volume. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 

Everyman's Library. Classic works in English and foreign litera- 
ture, with brief introductions. One of the best cheap editions. 
300 vols., 35 cents per volume. E. P. Button & Co., N. Y. 



144 BOOKS AND EDITIONS REFERRED TO 

Globe Poets. The chief English poets in single-volume, small-type 
editions, with portrait, introduction, and notes. 19 vols., $1.75 per 
volume. Macmillan Co., N. Y. 

Handy Volume Classics. Includes poetry and prose. The volumes 
are small, but clearly printed; brief introductions, no notes. 175 vols., 
35 cents per volume. T. Y. Crowell & Co., N. Y. 

Library of English Classics. Standard English prose works. Large, 
well-printed volumes, with editorial introductions. A good library edi- 
tion. 17 vols., $1.50 per volume. Macmillan Co., N. Y. 

Mer?naid Series. English dramatists of the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries. Best plays of each writer, with introduction and 
notes. 26 vols., $1 per volume. Charles Scribner's Sons, N. Y. 

Muses Library. English poets, in small volumes uniform with 
Universal Library, small type; good editorial introductions. 40 vols., 
40 cents per volume. E. P. Dutton & Co., N. Y. 

National Library. Standard prose and poetry in pocket volumes, 
small type, with introductions, no notes. 215 vols. Paper, 10 cents 
per volume ; cloth, 20 cents. Cassell & Co., N. Y. 

Temple Classics. Attractive pocket editions of standard works, 
English and foreign. Introductions and brief notes. A desirable edi- 
tion. 230 vols., 50 cents per volume. Macmillan Co., N. Y. 

Temple Dramatists. Includes Shakespeare and other English and 
European dramatic writers. Each play in a single volume, with intro- 
duction and notes. 70 vols., 50 cents per volume. Macmillan Co., N. Y. 

Universal Library. Standard works in handy forms, small type. 
90 vols., 40 cents per volume. E. P. Dutton & Co., N. Y. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE 



CHAPTER I 



THE COLONIAL WRITERS 

John Smith Cotton Mather 

Jonathan Edwards 

In its beginning American literature was merely an off- 
shoot of English literature. It has come to be much more 
than that to-day, but we are deal- 
ing with its origin. The early 
English colonists in America 
were, many of them, graduates 
of the universities ; they brought 
with them English books and 
English ideas. It was simply the 
transplanting of English culture 
to a new soil. The very earliest 
books written in America hardly 
belong to American literature at 
all; they are books by English- 
men who wrote while they were 
away from home. 

Such is the case with the book 
that has been called the earliest in American literature, 
the True Relation of Captain John Smith (i 580-1631). 
The full title of this book is The True Relation of Such 
Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Happened in 

i45 




JV Qrrutf) 



146 THE COLONIAL WRITERS 

Virginia. Smith was a typical adventurer of the time of 
Queen Elizabeth. He left home a boy of fifteen and 
wandered through many lands. On a voyage to Italy he 
was thrown into the sea as a heretic by a company of pil- 
grims, who declared they should have no good weather 
while he was on board. In Turkey he overcame three 
champions in single combat and cut off their heads. 
His True Relation tells of his deeds in America as explorer 
and Indian fighter. The story of his romantic rescue by 
Pocahontas is one of the incidents he relates. A few other 
books were produced in Virginia, but like the True Rela- 
tion they were the work of Englishmen. 

In New England, however, we find books written by 
men who had become citizens of the new country. The 
early literature of the New England colonies falls into 
two classes : historical and theological. The historical 
writing is chiefly in the form of journals or diaries, in 
which the founding of the nation is told by the founders 
themselves. Such books are William Bradford's History of 
Plymouth and John Winthrop's History of Nezv England. 
In these we see the intensely religious character of the 
people. The Puritan Sabbath began at sundown on Satur- 
day; the drowning of a child in a well is spoken of as a 
just punishment upon the father for working after sundown 
Saturday. A woman who reproached the elders of the 
church had a cleft stick put upon her tongue for half an 
hour. A drunkard was ordered to wear a red D about 
his neck for a year, an incident which Hawthorne adapted 
in The Scarlet Letter. 

The theological writings fill many volumes. The minis- 
ters were well educated, trained in composition by writing 
four sermons a week, and some of them produced books 
with alarming facility. Cotton Mather is credited with 



COTTON MATHER 



147 



over four hundred volumes, some of them still unpublished. 
Yet very little of all this theological writing belongs to 
literature ; none of it is read to-day except by the curious. 
One of the remarkable books of this class is John Eliot's 
Indian Bible. Eliot was a Puritan divine who held that 
the Indians were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of 
Israel, and devoted his life to the attempt to Christianize 
them. To this end he learned their language and trans- 
lated the whole Bible into Algonquin. This was the first 
time that the Indian speech had been reduced to writing, 
and Eliot's was the first Bible printed in America. 

The most distinguished religious writers of the time were 
Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards. Cotton Mather 
(1663-1728) was the third of a 
line of famous New England 
preachers and a man of mighty 
achievements. He entered Har- 
vard College at eleven, was 
preaching at seventeen, and as 
pastor of the North Church of 
Boston exercised greater influ- 
ence than the governor of the 
colony. He knew seven lan- 
guages ; some of his books are 
written in English, some in 
French, some in Spanish, some 
in Algonquin, while he quotes 
Greek and Hebrew frequently. 
His great work is the Magnalia Chris ti Americana, or 
Ecclesiastical History of New England. This is a huge 
book, filling over a thousand folio pages. It contains the 
lives of eminent New England ministers ; a history of 
Harvard College, which was founded to train men for the 




Go Hon c/flcdfisv! 



I48 THE COLONIAL WRITERS 

ministry; and accounts of the battles of the church with 
its enemies, among whom Mather counted witches, Indians, 
and Quakers. The Magnalia is to American literature 
what Bede's Ecclesiastical History is to English literature. 

A second work of Mather's was The Wonders of the 
Invisible World, in which witchcraft was fully treated. 
Mather believed that the American continent was the 
special home of the Devil, where he had reigned without 
any interference for ages. The setting up of the church 
in the land had angered the Devil terribly. He had 
come in person to wage war against it, and by means of 
witchcraft to confound even the godly ones. It all seems 
absurd enough now ; but Mather and other leaders of the 
people were terribly in earnest, and to their influence is 
due in large part the witchcraft trials at Salem, with their 
tragic ending. 

Jonathan Edwards (1 703-1 758) was a man of great in- 
tellectual power. He graduated from Yale College at 
seventeen; was a tutor there; then pastor of a church at 
Northampton, Mass., and later president of Princeton Col- 
lege. He was a wonderful preacher. The rigid doctrines 
of Calvinism were set forth by him with such force and 
vividness that his hearers trembled and wept under his 
words. His most famous sermon is called Sinners in the 
Hands of an Angry God. To the power of his preaching 
is due one of the greatest religious movements in America, 
the Great Awakening, as it is called. This revival move- 
ment began in Edwards's church, and in 1 740-1 745 spread 
all over the colonies, and even to England and Scotland. 

Edwards's chief work was a philosophical treatise On the 
Freedom of the Will. This was written to justify the doc- 
trines of Calvinism by pure reasoning. He maintained that 
the will was not free, since in every decision there was a 



READING FOR CHAPTER I 1 49 

weighing of motives, and the choice was always made on 
the side where the motives were strongest. The will then 
is like a pair of balances that tips down on the heavier side, 
and cannot be said to be free. This is only a part of Ed- 
wards's system of philosophy. His book stands alone as 
the one great contribution to philosophy made in America. 
To sum up the literary achievement of the Colonial period, 
it may be said that the colonists produced books but not 
literature. There was much written, but none of it had the 
symmetry of form, the grace of style, and the permanent 
human interest which make books live. The reason for 
this is not far to seek. The hardships of pioneer life, the 
struggle for existence in a new land, absorbed the energies 
of the people. The ministers were about the only class of 
people who had time for writing, and their writing was not 
for any purpose so frivolous as the production of literature. 
But in the following period we shall see a wider range of 
intellectual activity. 

READING FOR CHAPTER I 

The writings of John Smith, Cotton Mather, and Jonathan Edwards 
are not easy to find, except in large libraries. Sufficient extracts from 
these writers are given in Trent's Colonial Prose and Poetry 1 and in the 
Stedman-Hutchison Library of American Literature. 

For fuller treatment of this period, see C. F. Richardson's American 
Literature, vol. i (Putnam) ; D. G. Mitchell's American Lands and 
Letters, vol. i (Scribner) ; M. C. Tyler's History of American Litera- 
ture during the Colonial Time (Putnam). 

1 For publisher and price of books referred to, see p. 278. 



CHAPTER II 

THE REVOLUTIONARY WRITERS 

Patrick Henry Alexander Hamilton 

Thomas Jefferson Philip Freneau 

Benjamin Franklin 

The Revolutionary period is used here to include more 
than the period of actual war. It covers the years preced- 
ing the Revolution, when orators and writers were spreading 
abroad ideas of independence, and it continues some years 
later, when the nation was gradually shaping its present 
form of government. Roughly speaking, the period ex- 
tends from 1765 to 1800. 

As might be supposed, the writing in this period was 
largely political. This is the time when American oratory 
began. The issues at stake were felt by thoughtful men to 
be of tremendous importance ; yet there were many of the 
colonists who did not realize this, and others who feared 
that in a union they would lose some selfish advantage. To 
awaken men to the importance of the crisis, to arouse in 
them the spirit of sacrifice for their country's sake, was a 
work that could not be done by cold print and paper ; the 
message must pass direct from man to man, aided by the 
flashing eye, the earnest tone, and the impassioned gesture 
which enforce the words of the orator. How Patrick 
Henry's (1 736-1 799) hearers must have thrilled to hear 
him in the Virginia convention in 1775 : 

" Let us not deceive ourselves longer. We have done everything that 
could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have 
petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have prostrated ourselves before 

150 



HENRY, OTIS, ADAMS, JEFFERSON 



151 



the Throne. . . . Our petitions have been slighted ; our remon- 
strances have produced additional violence and insult ; our sup- 
plications have been disregarded, and we have been spurned with 
contempt from the foot of the Throne. In vain, after these things, 
may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no 
longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free ... we must fight ! 
I repeat it, we must fight. An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts 
is all that is left to us. . . . There is no retreat but in submission and 
slavery. Our chains are forged ; their clanking may be heard on the 
plains of Boston. The war is inevitable — and let it come! . . . 
Gentlemen may cry Peace, peace, — but there is no peace. The war is 
actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to 
our ears the clash of resounding arms. 
Our brethren are already in the field. , 

Why are we here idle ? . . . Is life so x .? y"- 

dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased 
at the price of chains and slavery? For- 
bid it, Almighty God! I know not 
what course others may take, but as for 
me, give me liberty or give me death ! - 1 

James Otis of Massachusetts 
was another orator of the time ; 
his speeches are compared to a 
flame of fire. To the stirring ap- 
peals of the orators were added 
clear, logical arguments in the 
form of political pamphlets. 
Samuel Adams, one of the most 
prolific writers of this kind of literature, has been called 
the organizer of the Revolution. When the Tories wrote 
pamphlets in opposition, he turned upon them so fiercely 
that, as one of his opponents said, every word stung like 
a horned snake. 

Most famous of all the political writings of the time is 
the Declaration of Independence. This was chiefly the 
work of Thomas Jefferson (1 743-1 826). Its dignified 





152 THE REVOLUTIONARY WRITERS 

style was suited to the weighty message it conveyed, and 
its statements form the creed of our political liberties. 

Another statesman of the period was Alexander Hamilton 
(175 7- 1 804). In connection with others he wrote a series 
of papers called The Federalist. These set forth the prin- 
ciples of our Constitution with such clearness and logic 
that they are still studied by those who would understand 
the principles of our government. 

In the troubled times of the Revolution one would not 
expect to find much attention given to poetry. A num- 
ber of political ballads were written, and some more 
ambitious works, but they had little poetic merit. One 
writer of the time, however, was entitled to the name of 
poet. This was Philip Freneau (1 752-1 832). He was 
a graduate of Princeton College ; he became an editor, 
and attacked the British in stinging satirical poems. 
But he found time also to write some delicate and beauti- 
ful poetry on other themes, such as The Wild Honeysuckle, 
Entaw Springs, and The Honey Bee. Freneau' s sheaf of 
verse is a slender one, yet by virtue of it he holds a place 
as our earliest American poet. 

We have considered the oratory, the political writing, 
and the poetry of this period, but the chief writer of the 
time, and indeed one of the chief figures in American 
literature, remains to be mentioned. This is Benjamin 
Franklin (1706- 1 790). The story of his life we have in 
his own words, for he has left us an Autobiography which 
is one of the most famous ever written. He was born in 
Boston, Jan. 17, 1706, the son of a soap-maker. When he 
was ten years old, he was taken from school to help his 
father. This ended his school-days, but not his education. 
He was passionately fond of reading, and his first earn- 
ings were spent for a copy of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 



153 



He got a volume of Addison's Spectator and was so much 
delighted with it that he used it as a means of learning to 
write. He would read an essay and make notes of the 
ideas expressed. Some time afterwards he would take 
these notes and write out the ideas in his own words, 
then compare his work with the original. In this way 
he formed a style almost as clear 
and pleasing as Addison's own. 
He had now left his father's 
shop and become an apprentice 
to his brother James, a printer. 
He soon learned his trade, and 
determined to set up for him- 
self in Philadelphia. He landed 
there, a lad of seventeen, with a 
capital of less than two dollars. 
But he had health, good habits, 
and strong intelligence, and soon 
made a place for himself. In 
1726 he set up his own printing 
office in Philadelphia, and three 
years later began to publish 
The Pennsylvania Gazette. His busy, practical mind was 
constantly devising schemes to benefit his fellow-men. 
As a plan of self-education he organized a debating club 
among his companions. This afterwards developed into the 
American Philosophical Society. He drew up the plan 
for an academy which afterwards became the University 
of Pennsylvania. As Postmaster-general he greatly im- 
proved the postal service and for the first time made it 
profitable. Yet with all this activity he kept up his study, 
especially along scientific lines. His famous experiment 
with a kite demonstrated that lightning and electricity 




154 THE REVOLUTIONARY WRITERS 

are the same ; he followed this by inventing the light- 
ning rod. His talents were soon demanded in his country's 
service. He was sent to England to oppose the Stamp 
Act, and labored for years to show the British Parliament 
the political blunders they were making in their treatment 
of the colonies. After the Revolution, at the critical period 
of our country's history, he was sent to France, and there 
did much to win for us the sympathy and assistance of 
that nation. 

Franklin was scientist, inventor, philanthropist, states- 
man, and man of letters. His writings are merely in- 
cidents in his busy life, yet they hold an important place 
in our literature. He is best known to-day by his Autobi- 
ography. It is not only one of the chief books in American 
literature, but one of the great autobiographies of the 
world. It tells, simply and interestingly, the life story of 
a great American. In his own day, Franklin was known as 
the author and publisher of Poor Richard's Almanac. The 
almanac, which contained the calendar, with the days of 
holding court and fast days, phases of the moon, the tides, 
and predictions of the weather, was an indispensable book 
in most households. Franklin, with his practical turn of 
mind, inserted in his almanacs many maxims and wise 
sayings, thus carrying lessons of thrift and prudence into 
thousands of homes. These maxims, some of which 
were original, some old sayings adapted by Franklin, 
were later collected into a short discourse entitled Father 
Abraham's Speech. This was published in England as The 
Way to Wealth, and was translated into French, Spanish, 
German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Gaelic, and 
Greek. Some of Poor Richard's maxims are : 

One to-day is worth ten to-morrows. 

God helps them who help themselves. 



READING FOR CHAPTER II 155 

Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee. 

He that drinks fast pays slow. 

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. 



READING FOR CHAPTER II 

Extracts from the writings of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and 
Alexander Hamilton are given in Warner, 1 in Brewer's Worlds Best 
Orations, Reed's Modem Eloquence, and in Library of American 
Literature. 

Freneau. — Selected poems in Stedman's American Anthology, and 
Library of American Literature. 

Franklin. — The Autobiography should be read. A good edition 
is that edited by Bigelow (Elia Series : G. P. Putnam). Inexpensive 
editions are in Cassell's National Library and Handy Volume Classics. 

Poor Richard 's Almanac is published in the Remarque series 
(Caldwell). Eat her Abraham 's Speech is in Trent. 

For fuller treatment of the writers in this period, see Barrett Wen- 
dell's Literary History of America (Scribner), W. P. Trent's Ameri- 
can Literature (Appleton), M. C. Tyler's Literary History of the 
AiJierican Revolution (Putnam), C. F. Richardson's A?nerica7i Litera- 
ture, vol. i (Putnam), and D. G. Mitchell's American Lands and Letters 
(Scribner). There is a good life of Franklin in the American Men of 
Letters series (Houghton). 

1 For publisher and price of books referred to, see p. 278. 



CHAPTER III 

THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 

Washington Irving J. Fenimore Cooper 

William Cullen Bryant 

The preceding chapters dealt with the literature of the 
Colonial and Revolutionary periods ; this chapter takes 
up the second stage of our literary development, the Pe- 
riod of Achievement, from 1809 to 1869. Although this 
covers less than a fourth of our country's history, it in- 
cludes nearly all of our chief writers. It is therefore im- 
possible to treat it in a single chapter, as was done with 
the early periods. A convenient way of taking up the 
authors of this period is to arrange them in groups accord- 
ing to the section of the country in which their work be- 
longs. 

The earliest of these groups had its center in New York 
City, in the first quarter of the nineteenth century ; it in- 
cludes Irving, Drake, Halleck, Bryant, and Cooper. Most 
of these writers were contributors to the old Knickerbocker 
Magazine, and they are known as the Knickerbocker 
School. 

The central figure in the group is Washington Irving 
( 1 783-1 859). He was the son of a Scotch sailor who had 
gone into business in New York City. He was born April 
3, 1783, just as Washington, with the patriot troops, entered 
the city, so it was natural that he should be named after 
the great man. As a boy his health was delicate, which 

156 



WASHINGTON IRVING 



157 




caused his schooling to be irregular. He was intensely 
fond of reading, and of taking long rambles with his gun 
along the banks of the Hudson and among the Catskill 
Mountains, regions which he was later to make famous 
in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. 
He entered a law office, but read more literature than law, 
and tried his hand at a series of essays in the style of Ad- 
dison's Spectator. In 1804 he was sent to Europe to im- 
prove his health by travel. He 
remained a year and a half, visit- 
ing France, Italy, and England, 
and this contact with the civili- 
zation and culture of the Old 
World was an important part of 
his education. 

Soon after his return he be- 
gan his Knickerbocker s History 
of New York. This was at first 
intended as a mere burlesque of 
a recent dull book on the same 
subject, but as Irving fairly en- 
tered upon the story of New 
York under Dutch rule, the sub- 
ject proved so fascinating that the book grew into an inde- 
pendent work. It was at once successful, and brought 
Irving into fame. For some years thereafter he wrote noth- 
ing more, and perhaps the History would have been his 
only work if a change in his circumstances had not ordered 
differently. The failure of his father's business led him 
to turn to his pen as a means of support. He went to 
England, and there wrote and published The Sketch Book. 
This was eagerly read by the British public, and Irving 
found himself famous in two countries. He was appointed 



7 



^ Jr 



r^ty- 



158 



THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 



secretary to the American legation in Spain, and his three 
years' residence there gave him material for several histori- 
cal works dealing with the discovery of America, and a 
volume of romantic stories called The AUiambra. He re- 
turned to America and purchased a home near Tarrytown, 
N. Y. It was a quaint Dutch house, once the home of a 
Van Tassell; Irving christened it Sunnyside, and settled 




SUNNYSIDE 



down here in the quiet of Sleepy Hollow. Here he wrote 
his Life of Goldsmith and Life of Washington, completing 
the latter only a short time before his death. 

Irving is the first noted American man of letters. To 
Franklin writing was but an incident in a busy career ; to 
Irving it was the chief interest and the chief occupation of 
his life. His work is entirely in prose ; it falls into three 
classes : essays, short stories, and historical writings, in- 
cluding biography. He began with essays in the style of 



WASHINGTON IRVING I 59 

Addison ; then in Knickerbocker s History of New York wrote 
a mock-serious history. This picture of New York City when 
it was New Amsterdam, with its burghers as round and 
placid as their own cabbages, smoking their long clay pipes 
and saying nothing ; a town where the burgomasters were 
chosen by weight, shows us Irving as the first great hu- 
morist in our literature. He has been compared to Swift, 
but the likeness is not a close one. Swift often uses irony 
or sarcasm ; his wit bites like acid. Irving, on the con- 
trary, is always genial; you laugh at his old Dutchmen, 
but the laugh has no mockery in it, and the descendants of 
those very people have adopted the name that Irving gave 
them and are proud of belonging to the " old Knicker- 
bocker families." 

The Sketch Book is Irving's best single work. It con- 
tains some admirable pictures of English rural life, and its 
description of Westminster Abbey is famous. The Legend 
of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle show Irving as a 
master of the short story, and are the first notable con- 
tributions to fiction produced in America. It is noteworthy 
that both these stories are founded on old traditions; here 
as in the History of New York Irving does his best when he 
has some material in history or legend to work upon, which 
his imagination shapes into new form and fills with life. 

This is what he has done in The Alhambra, which is a 
mingling of description and legend, dealing with the period 
when the Moors were the rulers of Spain. Tales of buried 
treasure, of enchanted princesses, and statues that come to 
life, are framed in by picturesque descriptions of Moorish 
palaces. His Tales of a Traveler is a series of narratives, 
the scenes laid in various countries. It is not equal to The 
Alhambra or The Sketch Book. 

Of Irving's biographical works the best is his Life of 



l6o THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 

Goldsmith. In the improvident, generous, warm-hearted 
Irishman, Irving found a type dear to his heart, and his 
biography is written with sympathy and knowledge. Irv- 
ing's historical works are gracefully written, but they do 
not take high rank as histories. 

Perhaps Irving's surest title to fame is as the creator of 
Rip Van Winkle. It is no small thing to have added a 
new figure to the world's gallery of imaginary portraits. 
There, with Don Quixote and Hamlet, with Falstaff and 
Doctor Primrose, as clear as any, stands the figure of Rip Van 
Winkle, drawn by the American artist, Washington Irving. 

With Irving it is convenient to associate two minor poets 
who lived and worked in New York City : Fitz-Greene 
Halleck (i 790-1 867) and Joseph Rodman Drake (1795- 
1820). A spirited poem of Halleck's called Marco Boz- 
zaris has often been declaimed in schoolrooms, and his 
poem on Burns contains some good stanzas. Drake was 
the finer poet of the two. His most artistic work is The 
Culprit Fay. It was written after a conversation with 
Cooper, Halleck, and others, who maintained that American 
streams afforded no such material for poetry as did those 
of the old world, with their many legends. Drake opposed 
this view, and in three days produced this graceful fairy 
tale in verse, with its scenes in the Highlands of the 
Hudson. Another of Drake's poems, The American Flag, 
is among our best poems of patriotism. Drake's early 
death cut short work that might have given him an impor- 
tant place in American literature. His friend Halleck 
mourned his loss in the tender lines beginning : 

Green be the turf above thee, 

Friend of my better days ; 
None knew thee but to love thee, 

None named thee but to praise. 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 



161 




We have noted that with Irving American fiction fairly 
began, in the form of the short story. The first novelist who 
handled plot and character on a large scale, like Scott's, 
was James Fenimore Cooper ( 1 789-1 8 5 1 ). Cooper was born 
in Burlington, N.J., Sept. 15, 1789. His father owned a 
large tract of land in the central part of New York state, 
where Cooperstown now stands, and to this he removed 
with his family when Fenimore was less than two years 
old. In this little settlement, with forests all about, where 
wild beasts and Indians were 
the sole inhabitants, he grew to 
boyhood. He was sent to school 
at Albany, and later to Yale. 
An independence of spirit which 
early showed itself led to his 
dismissal from Yale for some 
slight offense. Desirous of an 
active life, he went to sea, and 
later obtained a place as midship- 
man in the navy. Then came 
marriage and settling down as 
a country gentleman in West- 
chester county, New York. 

One day while reading a poor 
English novel he threw it down with the remark that he 
could do better himself. His wife dared him to try, and 
he set to work. The result was Precaution, a novel per- 
haps better than the English one, but quite inferior to 
Cooper's later work. The scene of this story was laid in 
England. Cooper's friends urged him to write a novel of 
American scenes and characters. They pointed out what 
Scott was doing for Scotland, and wished him to do a like 
service for America. So he took a story he had heard 







1 62 THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 

John Jay tell, and from it developed The Spy. The scene 
was in Westchester county ; the period that of the Revolu- 
tionary War. Before the story had been published three 
months it had gone into three editions, and had been 
dramatized. It was quickly reprinted in England and 
translated into French. There was no longer any doubt 
as to whether Cooper could write as good a novel as an 
Englishman; the question was whether any Englishman, 
save Scott, could write as good a novel as Cooper. 

His next story was The Pioneers, in which he described 
the scenes of his childhood on Otsego Lake.' The Pilot, 
like his first novel, was the result of an argument; he 
wrote it to show that the life of the sea had in it sufficient 
material for fiction. He was a rapid worker, and composed 
thirty-two novels, in addition to a History of tJie Navy and 
much miscellaneous writing. 

Cooper's best works are his historical novels, his sea 
stories, and his stories of frontier life, known as the 
Leather- Stocking Tales. Of the historical novels The Spy 
is the best, and after three-quarters of a century it re- 
mains the one great novel dealing with the period of the 
Revolution. The sea stories include The Pilot, The Red 
Rover, The Tzvo Admirals, and Wing and Wing. Cooper 
practically created the story of the sea. His early experi- 
ence as a sailor enabled him to write as one who knew 
every rope on a ship, and who had seen the ocean in all 
its moods of storm and calm. 

The Leather-Stocking Tales include The Deerslayer, The 
Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneers, and 
The Prairie. They are given a certain unity by the 
appearance of one character in them all : the scout, 
Natty Bumppo, known also as Hawkeye, Deerslayer, 
and Leather- Stocking. This character has been called 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 1 63 

Cooper's great contribution to fiction. He represents an 
important figure in American history : the pioneer, the first 
white man who pushed forward into the wilderness and 
made possible the expansion of our nation. The story of 
the pioneer has been told in historical form in Roosevelt's 
The Winning of the West ; but its best presentation in 
fiction is in the Leather- Stocking Tales. 

Cooper's strength lies in vigorous narrative power and 
in description. His character drawing is often weak, es- 
pecially in dealing with women. In humor he is not 
successful. But in his own field, the telling of stories of 
adventure by sea and land, he is hardly surpassed. 

If the Knickerbocker group had contained no names be- 
sides those of Irving and Cooper, it would still be distin- 
guished. But it produced a third author worthy of a 
place beside these: William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). 
Though Bryant belongs to the New York group, his 
early life was spent in New England. He was born at 
Cummington, Mass., Nov. 3, 1794. His father was a 
physician and an occasional writer of poetry. The boy 
had access to a good library ; he read much, and early 
tried his hand at rhyming. He was sent to Williams 
College, but his father could not afford to keep him there, 
so he left college to study law. He kept on reading lit- 
erature, however, and was particularly fond of Spenser's 
Faerie Qneene and the poetry of Wordsworth. One day 
his father found in the boy's desk a sheet of paper con- 
taining TJianatopsis. Delighted with the poem, he sent it 
to the North American Review. The editor at first hesi- 
tated to publish it, doubting that such poetry had been 
written by any American ; it was published in September, 
18 1 7. In 1 82 1 appeared a slender volume of poems, 
Bryant's first book. Urged by his friends, the poet finally 



164 THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 

gave up law for literature, and in 1825 removed to New- 
York to become the editor of a new magazine. This peri- 
odical was short-lived ; Bryant then obtained a position on 
the New York Evening Post, and soon became its editor- 
in-chief. He made the paper stand for what was best in 
American life ; he insisted that its news should be truthful 
and that it should be written in pure English. For fifty 

years as editor he upheld these 
principles, and did perhaps more 
than any other man to dignify 
American journalism. In his 
later years he was regarded as 
^ the foremost citizen of New 

York, and was frequently called 
upon to speak on public occa- 
sions. 

In Bryant's poetry one sees 
clearly the influences of his early 
surroundings. Western Massa- 
C~fi - s* rf£ chusetts is a region of great 

Y"^J natural beauty ; its lakes, rivers, 
and mountains compare not unfavorably with the famous 
lake country of England. Here Bryant gained that strong 
love of nature which is the inspiration of many of his best 
poems. The very titles, The Fringed Gentian, The Yelloiv 
Violet, The Planting of the Apple Tree, Green River, show 
how he turned again and again to this theme. The fa- 
mous Lines to a Waterfowl were composed one evening as 
he was walking across the hills to a village where he ex- 
pected to begin the practice of law. The sense of reli- 
gious trust expressed in the last stanza is characteristic of 
Bryant. 

This brings us to another feature of his poetry : its 




WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 1 65 

meditative character. This is best seen in his most 
famous poem, Thanatopsis. The title means a view of 
death. The poet meditates upon the fact that death is 
universal, and closes with this fine passage : 

So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, which moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 

Very much of Bryant's poetry is in this serious key. 
He has no humor, and rarely writes anything that stirs the 
blood. But such poems as Thanatopsis, The Past, and A 
Forest Hymn inspire the reader with a feeling as though 
he were walking through a vast cathedral. His later work 
in poetry was a translation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. 
It is a curious fact that his poetry shows no development ; 
he wrote as well and almost as maturely at twenty as at 
seventy. 

Bryant has been called the father of American poetry, 
and deserves the title. There were poets before him, 
such as Freneau, who occasionally struck a note of true 
poetry, but in Bryant we have a writer all of whose work 
is poetry, and much of it of a high order. He was our 
first poet to deal adequately with the beauty of nature; 
he had a remarkable command of blank verse, and in 
the moral and religious tone of his poetry he represents 
the spirit of Puritan New England. 



1 66 THE KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL 



READING FOR CHAPTER III 

Irving. — In the Sketch Book, the following : Rip Van Winkle, 
Westminster Abbey, The Stage Coach, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 
Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, The Christmas Dinner. 

Knickerbocker's History of New York: Bk. Ill, Chaps. I-IV. 

The Alhambra : Palace of the Alha?nbra, Court of Lions, The 
Moor's Legacy \ The Rose of the Alhambra. 

Irving's complete works are published in 24 vols., Geoffrey Crayon 
edition (Putnam). The Sketch Book is in Everyman's Library. 1 
Knickerbocker's New York is in Cassell's National Library (2 vols.). 

Cooper. — At least one of these should be read : The Spy, The Deer- 
slayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie, The Pioneers, The Pilot. 

Cooper's complete works, with introductions by Susan Fenimore 
Cooper, are published in 32 vols. (Houghton). The Leather-Stocking 
Tales (5 vols.) are in Everyman's. 

Bryant. — Thanatopsis, To a Waterfowl, A Forest Hymn, The Death 
of the Flowers, To the Fringed Gentian, Song of Marion'' s Men, The 
Antiquity of Freedom, The Planting of the Apple Tree, Robert of Lin- 
coln, Sella, The Flood of Years. 

Bryant's works are published in 4 vols. The poems are in 1 vol. 
(Appleton). Copious selections from Bryant are given in Page's Chief 
American Poets; selections also in Warner, Library of American Lit- 
erature, and Stedman. 

For fuller treatment of the writers of this group, see the references 
given at the end of Chap. II, and in addition E. C. Stedman's Poets of 
America ; also the lives of Bryant, Cooper, and Irving in the A7neri- 
can Men of Letters series (Houghton). 

1 For publisher and price of books referred to, see p. 278. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP — POETS AND ESSAYISTS 

Ralph Waldo Emerson James Russell Lowell 
Henry W. Longfellozv Oliver Wendell Holmes 

John G. Whittier Henry D. Thoreau 

American literature began in Philadelphia with Frank- 
lin ; then New York State produced three great writers, 
Irving, Cooper, and Bryant. About 1835 the literary 
center of the country shifted to New England, and the 
writers of this group — Emerson, Longfellow, Hawthorne, 
Lowell, Holmes, and Whittier — remain the great names 
in our literature. It will be convenient to treat these 
writers in two groups, discussing the poets and essayists 
in the present chapter, the writers of fiction, orators, and 
historians in the next. It should be kept in mind, how- 
ever, that these two chapters do not represent different 
periods of time. The chief work of all these New Eng- 
land authors was done between 1835 and 1870. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1 803-1 882) was the earliest 
of the New England group to attain distinction. He 
was born in Boston, May 25, 1803. His father was a 
clergyman, who died when Ralph was a child, leaving 
the family to struggle with poverty. Ralph went to Har- 
vard, paying part of his expenses by waiting at table 
in the college dining-hall. After graduation he taught 
for a few years ; then entered the ministry, as his ances- 
tors for six generations had done. But he came to 
hold different views from those of his church, and quietly 

167 



1 68 



THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 




resigned his charge. He spent the next years in Europe, 
where he met Coleridge and Wordsworth, and visited 
Carlyle in his lonely home at Craigenputtock. Return- 
ing to America, he took up his residence at Concord, 

Mass. His days were passed in 
study, in long walks, and in writ- 
ing. He lectured frequently, in 
Boston and elsewhere. In 1836 
he published his first book, Na- 
ture ; it found but few readers. 
But he was reaching a larger 
and larger audience through his 
lectures, which were given in 
many cities. In 1837 ne deliv- 
ered an address at Harvard on 
The American Scholar, which is 
one of his greatest public utter- 
ances. In 1 84 1 he published 
the first volume of his Essays, 
and some years later his Poems. Carlyle and his other 
English friends wished him to come to England and lec- 
ture ; he did so, and afterwards published his addresses 
under the title Representative Men. His impressions of 
England were recorded in a second book, English Traits. 
The slavery question was now becoming prominent, 
and Emerson unhesitatingly took his stand with the op- 
ponents of slavery, though this step cost him some lec- 
ture engagements which he could ill afford to lose. He 
continued lecturing and writing until 1870, when his 
strength began to fail. He died in 1882. 

Emerson's work includes both prose and poetry. His 
poetry has never been generally popular ; it has passages 
of exquisite beauty, but it is often obscure. He had no 



J^ylj/a/do £™*nfe* 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 



169 



ear for music, and his verse lacks the singing quality. Yet 
some of his shorter poems, such as Rhodora, the Concord 
Hymn, and Days, have a rare excellence. 

His prose writings, which fill nine volumes, are all in 
the form of essays, and belong to the class known as re- 
flective essays. He does not describe places, as Irving 
did in the Sketch Book, nor draw imaginary characters, as 




EMERSON'S HOME, CONCORD, MASS. 



Addison had done in the De Coverley Papers, but he 
chooses general subjects, such as History, Friendship, 
Compensation, and gives us his thoughts on these. Some- 
times he is not easy reading; sometimes you can see no con- 
nection between one sentence and the next ; but light will flash 
out a moment later, and you will be more than repaid for 
the delay. His nature was singularly pure, and his mental 
vision keen ; he seemed to see through the disguises of the 
world, and penetrate to the soul beneath ; so that in reading 



170 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

him you learn to look at things in a new light, to see truths 
that you had not suspected. He is thus one of the most 
inspiring writers in our literature. So noted a critic as 
Matthew Arnold calls Emerson's Essays the most impor- 
tant work done in prose in our language during the nine- 
teenth century. 

Emerson is one of the most quotable of authors. He 
had the power of putting his thought into short, pithy 
sentences, as had Franklin before him, but Emerson's 
thoughts are not Franklin's thoughts. Franklin's maxims 
are nearly all concerned with the wisdom of this world ; if 
you follow him, you will be prosperous. Emerson goes be- 
yond this, — he is a spiritual leader, and one of the greatest 
of his time. The following sentences are from his essays : 

The only way to have a friend is to be one. 

Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. 

Life is not so short but there is always time for courtesy. 

Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough 

to cover. 
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year. 

That only which we have within us can we see without. If we meet 
no gods, it is because we harbor none. 

Emerson is chiefly known by his prose ; the next writer of 
the New England group is a poet, — Longfellow. Henry 
Wadsworth Longfellow (i 807-1 882) was born in Portland, 
Me., Feb. 27, 1807. His father was a lawyer of Portland, 
his mother a descendant of Priscilla Alden, whom the poet 
was to commemorate in Miles Standish. Portland, with 
its pine-clad hills and its beautiful harbor, was a fit place 
for a poet's boyhood, and how deeply it impressed Long- 
fellow is seen in his poem My Lost Youth. 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 



71 



He early showed a taste for literature ; at twelve he read 
with great delight Irving's Sketch Book, then just published, 
and at thirteen he wrote verses which were printed in 
the Portland paper. In 1822 he was sent to Bowdoin 
College, where Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of his class- 
mates, and Franklin Pierce, later President Pierce, was a 
student. In 1824 he wrote to his father, " I most eagerly 
aspire after future eminence in literature ; my whole soul 
burns most ardently for it, and 
my earthly thought centers in 
it." His father sympathized ^ 

with him, but pointed out that 

literature was a very uncertain -^^'WK- 

means of support and suggested , ^ .>NjBt 

the law. Fortunately a way was ~ • 

opened, for the authorities of 
Bowdoin College decided to in- 
troduce the modern languages 
in their course, and offered Long- 
fellow the professorship if he 
would prepare himself for it. 
So in 1826 he sailed for Europe, U'V^C^^^^jJw^*-^ 
where he remained three years, 

studying the languages and literature of Germany, France, 
Spain, and Italy. Returning to America, he took up his 
work as a teacher with enthusiasm, writing text-books and 
making many translations that he might reveal the beauties 
of foreign literature to his countrymen. 

His work at Bowdoin was so successful that in 1834 he 
was called to a similar position at Harvard. Again he 
went abroad for study, and in 1835 his first great sorrow 
came to him, the death of his wife, the " being beauteous " 
of his poem Footsteps of Angels. In 1836 he took up his 




172 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

work at Harvard, work which he continued for nearly 
twenty years. 

In the meantime his pen was not idle. The Voices of 
the Night appeared in 1839, and in 1841 Ballads and Other 
Poems, which contained The Wreck of the Hesperus, The 
Rainy Day, The Village Blacksmith, and Excelsior. His first 
long poem, Evangeline, appeared in 1847, and from this time 
Longfellow was easily the most popular American poet. 
In 1843 ne married Miss Frances Appleton and made 
his home in the Craigie house, Cambridge, which is now 
known as the Longfellow house. Feeling that his college 
work interfered with his writing, he resigned his professor- 
ship in 1854. The next year he published The Song of 
Hiawatha, a re-telling of Indian legends, written in a pecul- 
iar meter which Longfellow imitated from the Swedish. 

In 1 86 1 the poet suffered a second bereavement in the 
death of his wife. How deeply he suffered is shown in 
the fine sonnet, The Cross of Snow. Feeling incapable 
for a time of original composition, he turned to translation 
as a relief for his thoughts, and completed a version of 
Dante's Divine Comedy. In 1868 he went abroad again, 
receiving the highest honors from the universities of 
Oxford and Cambridge. The rest of his life was spent 
peacefully in his Cambridge home, which had already be- 
come a place of pilgrimage for the lovers of the poet. 
Schoolboys from Boston, admirers seeking the poet's auto- 
graph, young writers asking for advice or assistance, came 
by scores, and all met with a gracious reception from the 
good white poet. He died peacefully March 24, 1884. 
His death was mourned by the English-speaking world. 
His bust stands in Westminster Abbey, London ; and his 
grave in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, always has 
flowers upon it. 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 173 



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174 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

It is difficult to criticise where we love, and Longfellow 
is certainly the best loved of American poets. His poetry 
has its shortcomings : he is less original than Poe, less 
ardently patriotic than Lowell. Yet his poetry touches 
the heart as Poe's never does, and his fame, in life and 
death, is far wider than Lowell's. Pie is beyond dispute 
the most popular of our poets, and it is said that in Eng- 
land he is better known than Tennyson. 

Of the three main classes of poetry, — lyric, narrative, 
and dramatic, — he has attempted all, though not with equal 
success. His dramatic poems were chiefly the work of 
his later years ; they include Hie Golden Legend and 
The Divine Tragedy. The poet himself preferred these 
to his other work, but his readers do not agree with him. 
In narrative poetry Longfellow has probably achieved his 
greatest success. Short poems like The Wreck of the 
Hesperus, The Skeleton in Armor, and Paul Revere ' s Ride 
have a directness and vigor that have long made them 
favorites. In longer narratives, such as Evangeline, he 
shows his mastery of descriptive writing and his power to 
touch the emotions. It is interesting to learn that the 
story of Evangeline was suggested to Longfellow by 
Hawthorne, who had thought of writing a romance upon 
it. In Miles Siandish we get glimpses of Longfellow's 
humor, a thing he rarely allowed to creep into his poetry. 
Hiawatha is, of course, not a faithful picture of Indian life, 
but rather a beautiful fancy of that life as it might have 
been. In this idealizing of the Indian we find a character- 
istic of Longfellow. He always looked for the best in 
literature and in life ; he preferred not to see the darker 
side, and seldom touched it in his poetry. 

To lyric poetry — that which deals with emotion — be- 
longs much of Longfellow's best-known work. It is inter- 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 1 75 

esting to note how many of these poems convey a lesson. 
In The Rainy Day it is that of resignation : 

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; 
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining ; 
Thy fate is the common fate of all, 
Into each life some rain must fall, 
Some days must be dark and dreary. 

In The Builders he emphasizes the importance of honest, 
faithful fulfillment of our daily task : 

All are architects of Fate, 

Working in these walls of Time ; 
Some with massive deeds and great, 

Some with ornaments of rhyme. 

For the structure that we raise 

Time is with materials filled ; 
Our to-days and yesterdays 

Are the blocks with which we build. 

Let us do our work as well, 

Both the unseen and the seen ; 
Make the house, where Gods may dwell, 

Beautiful, entire, and clean. 

Excelsior is the poem of aspiration ; the Psalm of Life 
has a noble message of courage and hope. At times we 
all feel the need of such lessons as these. Many poets 
have tried to teach them, but Longfellow has done it so 
simply and so musically that for many readers he is their 
chosen poet. Others are more highly praised by critics, 
but none more loved by their readers. 

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807- 1892), the next in this 
group of New England poets, was born in East Haver- 
hill, Mass., Dec. 17, 1807. The year of his birth is the 
same as Longfellow's, but the circumstances of the two 



;6 



THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 



men were very different. Longfellow was the son of 
cultured parents, and received all the advantages that 
education and foreign travel could bestow ; Whittier was 
the son of a Quaker farmer, who was scarcely able to send 
his son to the village school. But there were a few books 
in his father's house, or borrowed from neighbors, that it 
was almost an education to read. The Bible was one of 
these books ; another was Burns's poems, and later came 

Shakespeare and Scott, though 
his Quaker conscience at first 
troubled him as to whether he 
ought to read these books. 

It was Burns that made Whit- 
tier a poet. He was a boy of 
fourteen when he first read 
Burns ; he had never dreamed 
that poetry could be written by 
a farmer's boy, and on the 
homely subjects that Burns 
chose. If it was possible in 
Scotland, why not in Massachu- 
setts ? So he wrote verses of 
his own, which his sister sent to 
a newspaper. The editor, who was William Lloyd Gar- 
rison, thought so well of the poems that he came to see 
the author. He found a blushing, shy, country boy, to 
whom he talked kindly, urging him to get some education. 
The boy managed to get a year's schooling at an academy, 
paying his way by making slippers. Aided by Mr. Garri- 
son, he then secured a place on a newspaper in Boston, and 
later held editorial positions in Hartford and Philadelphia. 
He had written enough poetry by this time to fill a small 
volume, but little of this early work is important. 




JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 1 77 

About 1833, however, he found a subject that called 
forth all his powers. This was the anti-slavery movement. 
It took courage to be an abolitionist in those days, and 
Whittier's advocacy of the cause at once closed the columns 
of many periodicals to his poems. When he was editing 
The Freeman in Philadelphia, his office was sacked and 
burned by a mob and his life threatened. But week after 
week he sent forth poems which roused the conscience of 
the nation. His Expostulation, Summons to the North, 
Massachusetts to Virginia, — " burning lyrics," as Lowell 
calls them, — entitle him to be called the poet of freedom. 

In 1840 his health obliged him to give up his work on 
The Freeman, and he removed to Amesbury, Mass., which 
was henceforth his home. He never married, but the 
companionship of his sister made his home pleasant. He 
continued to write in defense of his chosen cause, and dur- 
ing the war cheered the soul of the North by poems like 
Barbara Frietchie. 

When the war had settled the question of slavery, Whit- 
tier turned once more to the quiet scenes of boyhood that 
had been the subject of his early verse, and wrote Snow- 
Bound. The success of this poem, almost as great as that 
of Evangeline, relieved Whittier from his straitened cir- 
cumstances, for although he was widely known as a poet, 
much of his verse brought him little or nothing ; it was 
his gift to the cause. From this time he lived quietly at 
Amesbury, from time to time publishing a slender volume 
of poems. He clung to his Quaker coat and Quaker ways ; 
he never attended a theater, and disliked " society," much 
preferring to talk with his neighbors in the village. He 
died Sept. 7, 1892. His last words were: "My — love — 
to — the — world." 

Whittier's work may be considered as belonging to two 



178 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

periods. In the first he is the poet of the anti-slavery 
movement. Much of the verse of this period was of 
necessity hastily written ; there was no time to polish lines 
when a trumpet-call was needed. But the fierce flame of 
moral indignation that burns in many of his lyrics more 
than atones for slight faults. When Webster, in his 
famous SeventJi-of-MarcJi Speech, disappointed many of 
his admirers by coming out as an advocate of slavery, 
Whittier wrote the poem Ichabod. It is like the tolling 
of a great bell for a departed hero. Perhaps the finest 
poem of this group is one called Laus Deo ! (Praise be 
to God !) It was written at the news of the adoption 
of the amendment abolishing slavery. Stirred to the 
depths of his nature by this, he wrote : 

It is done! 

Clang of bell and roar of gun 
Send the tidings up and down. 

How the belfries rock and reel! 

How the great guns, peal on peal, 
Fling the joy from town to town. . . . 

Blotted out ! 

All within and all about 
Shall a fresher life begin ; 

Freer breathe the universe 

As it rolls its heavy curse 
On the dead and buried sin ! 

It is done! 

In the circuit of the sun 
Shall the sound thereof go forth. 

It shall bid the sad rejoice, 

It shall give the dumb a voice, 
It shall belt with joy the earth! 

Ring and swing 
Bells of joy! On morning 1 s wing 
Send the sound of praise abroad ! 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 1 79 

With a noise of broken chains 
Tell the nations that He reigns. 
Who alone is Lord and God! 

The Civil War closed the first period of Whittier's 
poetic work. He now turned to more peaceful themes, 
and won new laurels as the poet of New England rural 
life. He had occasionally written on this theme before ; 
the fine poem, The Barefoot Boy, was published in 1856. 
It is a poem which only a country boy can appreciate. 
Snow-Bound is a picture on a larger scale. The home de- 
scribed is Whittier's own, the sister is the one who was his 
companion, and whose recent death gave pathos to the poem. 
With faithful, loving art the poet reconstructs for us the 
home of his childhood. We see the group about the fire- 
side, with the apples sputtering in a row, the dog with his 
head spread upon his paws ; it is as clear as a picture. And 
the description of those who sat about the fire shows us 
the hearts of the simple, honest, country folk. Since this 
home was typical of rural New England at that period, the 
poem is an artistic embodiment of one of the most signifi- 
cant sides of our national life. It has been called TJie 
Cotter s Saturday Night of America, and deserves the 
praise. 

Whittier further appeals to us as the poet of a simple 
religious faith. This is constantly felt in his poetry ; it is 
beautifully expressed in the lines to his sister in Snow-Bound, 
and is the theme of many short poems of his which have 
found a place in church hymnals. One of the best poems 
of this kind is The Eternal Goodness, part of which follows : 



But God hath led my dear ones on, 
And He can do no wrong:. 




180 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

And so beside the Silent Sea 
I wait the muffled oar ; 

No harm from Him can come to me 
On ocean or on shore. 

I know not where His islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air ; 

I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond His love and care. 



FACSIMILE OF THE FINAL LINES OF "MAUD MULLER " 

James Russell Lowell (i 8 19- 1 891), like Longfellow, was 
fortunate in that his circumstances favored the develop- 
ment of his genius. He was born at Cambridge, Mass., 
Feb. 22, 18 19. Cambridge is a suburb of Boston, and 
Lowell grew up surrounded by the best culture in Amer- 
ica at that time. His father was a clergyman ; his mother 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



181 



a woman of literary tastes, and especially fond of poetry. 
His childhood was passed in an atmosphere of books, and 
in his rambles about the country — for Cambridge was 
then only a village — he came to know nature as well as 
books. When he went to Har- ^ — -- --. 

vard he found, fortunately for 
him, that literary ability was the 
surest way to distinction among 
his fellow-students. Not the 
athlete but the writer was then 
the college hero. He began to 
write verse, and was chosen 
class poet. After graduation he 
studied law, as had so many 
other writers, but was strongly 
drawn toward literature. His 
first published volume, A Years 
Life, contained among other 
poems a tribute to Maria White, 
a young lady of unusual charm, 
who soon afterward became his wife, 
zine, The Pioneer, but it had not sufficient support, and 
left him in debt. He continued to write for other periodi- 
cals, and in 1846 began The Biglow Papers, which first 
made him widely known. His wife's health was delicate, 
and in 185 1 he made a voyage to Europe, hoping it would 
benefit her, but she died two years later. 

He was now living in Cambridge, in the pleasant colo- 
nial house called Elmwood, his birthplace. By writing 
and lecturing he had become well known in literary 
circles, and when in 1857 Longfellow resigned his pro- 
fessorship at Harvard, Lowell was appointed to succeed 
him. Shortly afterward The Atlantic Monthly was founded, 




He started a maga- 



182 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

with Lowell as its first editor. The prose and verse he con- 
tributed to it, along with the contributions of Holmes, Whit- 
tier, and Emerson, made the magazine what it still remains, 
— ■ the expression of American culture at its best. 

Meanwhile Lowell had been actively interested in politics. 
He took part in the campaign of 1876, and upon the elec- 
tion of Hayes, Lowell was' appointed Minister to Spain. In 
1880 he became Minister to England. Here his genial yet 
refined nature, his wit and his scholarship gave Englishmen 
a new conception of what an American gentleman might be. 
Returning to America in 1884, he prepared a collected edi- 
tion of his works, in ten volumes. He died Aug. 12, 1891. 

With Lowell as with Whittier the anti-slavery move- 
ment was the inspiration of much of his best poetry. The 
annexation of Texas called forth The Present Crisis. 

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side. 
Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand 
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land? 

In lines like these was heard a note of patriotism and 
lofty moral earnestness that was to make Lowell a power 
in the coming struggle. The attempt to gain new terri- 
tory for slavery by the Mexican War called forth the 
series of poems known as The Biglow Papers. These 
were written in the Yankee dialect, the homely New Eng- 
land speech that Lowell had heard as a boy. His han- 
dling of this was masterly. He used it for ridicule, and in 
What Mr. Robinson Thinks set the whole country laugh- 
ing at a political trimmer. He used it for description, and 
in Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line tells how in spring 

The maple crimsons to a coral reef; 

Then saffern swarms swing off from all the wallers, 

So plump they look like yaller caterpillars ; 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 1 83 

Then gray hossches'nuts leetle hands unfold 
Softer'n a baby's be at three days old. 
Thet's robin-redbreast's almanick ; he knows 
Thet arter this ther's only blossom-snows. 

He used it to arouse the people's sense of wrong, and 
the homely speech carried his message straight to the 
hearts of men. 

At the close of the war a memorial service was held at 
Harvard in honor of her graduates who had fallen in the 
conflict. For this occasion Lowell wrote his Commemora- 
tion Ode, which marks his highest achievement in poetry. 
The lines on Lincoln show that Lowell was one of the 
earliest to appreciate the real greatness of this heroic 
figure : 

Great captains, with their guns and drums, 

Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
But at last silence comes ; 
These all are gone, and standing like a tower 
Our children shall behold his fame. 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man. 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame. 

New birth of our new soil, the first American. 

Lowell resembled Whittier again in drawing much of 
his inspiration from nature. His Indian- Summer Reverie 
is a series of delicate landscape sketches ; Pictures from 
Apple dore describes the ocean in storm and calm. The 
two preludes of The Vision of Sir Lannfal, with their 
pictures of a day in June and a day in December, are or 
should be familiar to every reader. 

Mention should be made of Lowell's Fable for Critics, 
an early production of his, in which he hit off in rollicking 
verse the characteristics of his fellow-authors. The criti- 
cisms of Bryant, Poe, Emerson, and Cooper are admirable, 



1 84 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

and our surprise is greater when we consider that at this 
time these authors were only beginning their work. This 
poem also shows one of Lowell's chief characteristics, — 
his humor. This he possessed to a far greater degree than 
either Longfellow or Whittier. It runs all through The 
Biglow Papers, where it may be seen to advantage in 
the short poem The Courtiri . 

The chief objection to be made against Lowell's poetry 
is its unevenness. Certain passages, certain lines, have 
the highest poetic quality, but this height is not main- 
tained. Few of his poems are satisfactory as a whole. 
His style, too, is less clear than Longfellow's or Whittier's, 
and this is perhaps the reason why he has never been as 
popular as these writers. 

Lowell's prose writings include seven volumes of essays, 
nearly all on literary themes. " I am a bookman," he 
said of himself ; and the very title of these volumes, My 
Study Windows, Among My Books, Literary Essays, sug- 
gest that we shall find here the talk of one who was most 
at home in his library. Some of these essays, as the one 
on Dante, are the result of Lowell's work as a teacher; 
others were written as reviews while he was editor of The 
Atlantic Monthly. In the essay entitled Shakespeare Once 
More we have one poet discussing another with breadth of 
knowledge and fine appreciation. Lowell is one of the 
few great literary critics America has produced. All of his 
prose is racy with humor ; he has no dull pages, even when 
he writes of dull authors. One of his shorter essays, My 
Garden Acquaintance, contains a delightful description of 
his bird neighbors. Lowell's Letters, which were published 
in two volumes after his death, show the many sides of his 
nature : poet, student, teacher, editor, foreign minister, and 
true American. They are delightful reading. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 



I8 5 



Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809- 1894) is the third in the 
group of Cambridge poets, including Longfellow and 
Lowell. Like them he belonged to the best New Eng- 
land stock ; his father was a Congregational minister at 
Cambridge. He was born Aug. 29, 1809, in the old 
house described in The Poet at the Breakfast Table. He 
went to Phillips Exeter Academy and to Harvard College, 
graduating in the class of 1829. Deciding to become a 
physician, he went to Paris for study, and returned to open 
an office in Boston. He was al- 
ready known as a wit, and an- 
nounced to his friends that small 
fevers would be gratefully re- 
ceived. He was appointed pro- 
fessor of anatomy at Dartmouth 
in 1838, and in 1847 called to 
a similar position at Harvard, 
where he remained for thirty 
years. He made some valuable 
contributions to medical science, 
but the world prefers to remem- 
ber him as an author. 

He wrote verse while he was 
in college, where he was class poet. The year after his 
graduation he saw in a newspaper that the frigate Consti- 
tution, which had done good service in the War of 18 12, 
was about to be dismantled, as no longer fit for service. 
At once he wrote the stirring lines Old Ironsides, which 
were copied into all the newspapers of the country. The 
verses saved the ship, and made Holmes known as a poet. 
His first volume of poems contained The Last Leaf, a deli- 
cate silhouette, where humor is mingled with pathos, the 
whole done with a grace and lightness of touch seldom sur- 




tffcref Jfa^dU&'JffinJ. 



1 86 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

passed. A later poem, The Chambered Nautilus, was the 
one which the poet himself preferred. In after years when 
his college class held its reunions, he was always called 
upon for a poem. In this way he wrote Bill and Joe and 
The Boys. The latter poem was written for the thirtieth 
anniversary of his class. At fifty most men would ac- 
knowledge that they are no longer young, but Holmes sings : 

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys ? 
If there has, take him out without making a noise ! 
Hang the Almanac's cheat, and the Catalogue's spite! 
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night! 

Verse of this type, written for some anniversary or other 
event, is called "occasional" poetry. To this class very 
much of Holmes's writing belongs. At meetings of all 
sorts he was called upon, and was generally ready with 
rhymes for the occasion. Naturally such writing is not 
likely to be the highest kind of poetry ; it is written for a 
day, not for all time, and has served its purpose when the 
occasion is past. It is high praise, then, to say that some of 
Holmes's occasional poetry still survives, kept alive by the 
sparkling wit, the perfect finish, and the easy grace which 
are characteristic of Holmes's poetry. 

But Holmes's prose is even better known than his verse. 
When Lowell became editor of The Atlantic Monthly, he 
did so on condition that Holmes would be a contributor. 
The first number of the magazine contained the opening 
chapters of The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. This 
was followed some years later by The Professor at the Break- 
fast Table, and still later by The Poet at the Breakfast Table. 
The three books are rather difficult to classify. They are 
not fiction, nor essays, exactly ; they are a new form of lit- 
erature, — conversation. They purport to be the talk of 



HENRY D, THOREAU 



87 



I. 



: 




various people at a boarding-house, but it must have been 
a boarding-house of the gods. The talk ranges over many 
subjects, now sparkling with wit, now with a shrewd thrust 
of common-sense worthy of Franklin, now touching deeper 
themes with reverence, or speaking of sentiment with the 
feeling of a poet. The Autocrat is perhaps the best of the 
series ; it has delighted three generations of readers, and 
is likely to be the book by which Holmes's name will 
be longest remembered. 

Two more essayists remain to be noticed in this group 
of New England writers : Thoreau and Mitchell. Henry 
D. Thoreau (1817-1862) 
was a friend and disciple 
of Emerson. He was 
born in Concord, Mass., 
graduated at Harvard, 
taught school for a while, 
lectured a little, manu- 
factured lead pencils for 
a time, followed the 
trade of a surveyor, and 
wrote for newspapers. 
He did none of these 
things steadily, and cared 
for none of them ; they 
were only a means of 
support. His real busi- 
ness was to live his own life, with opportunity to observe, 
and time to think. His thoughts were recorded in a jour- 
nal, and from this he drew the material for an occasional 
book. The best known of his works is Walden, or Life in 
the Woods. It tells how he went into the woods near Con- 
cord and built a hut on the shore of Walden pond, where 



# : 






THOREAU'S HUT 



1 88 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

he lived for two years. He walked about, studying na- 
ture with a loving eye ; he read a few books, and wrote 
his thoughts in his journal. Many have talked of plain 
living and high thinking ; Thoreau practiced it. His ideals 
were high. He once refused to pay his taxes, on the 
ground that he would not support a government that per- 
mitted slavery. He was put in jail, and when Emerson 
came to see him and said, " Henry, why are you here ? " 
the reply was, " Why are you not here ? " 

Thoreau' s chief books are Walden, A Week on the Concord 
and Mei'riniac Rivers, Excursions, The Maine Woods, and 
Cape Cod. As the titles suggest, they are records of his 
life with nature. He hated cities ; the only place where 
he could be happy in Boston was at the railway station 
waiting for the train to take him away. He taught and 
practiced a return to the customs of simpler times, saying 
that much of what we call civilization only encumbers 
and distracts us. Whether we accept his philosophy or not, 
we can take delight in his quaint humor and in his ex- 
quisite descriptions of nature. He has been called the 
poet-naturalist; his descriptions have the faithfulness of 
science and the beauty of poetry. 

Donald G. Mitchell (1822- 1908) was the latest survivor 
of this group of New England writers. From his quiet 
home at Edgewood near New Haven, Conn., he sent 
forth a score of volumes, two of which, Dream Life and 
Reveries of a Bachelor, have been favorites for many 
years. Dream Life the author calls "a book of the 
heart " ; it recalls the work of Irving in the vein of gentle 
sentiment that runs through it. His last work, American 
Lands and Letters, is a familiar account of American lit- 
erature, richly illustrated with portraits and autographs of 
authors, many of whom were his personal friends. 



READING FOR CHAPTER IV 1 89 



READING FOR CHAPTER IV 

Emerson. — Essays, First Series: Compensation, Self- Reliance. 
Essays, Second Series : Manners, Nature. Conduct of Life : Culture. 

Poems : The Rhodora, The Humble Bee, The Snowstorm, The Tit- 
mouse, Concord Hymn, Ode, fuly 4, 1857, Each and All, The Problem, 
Forbearance, Days, Threnody. 

Emerson's complete works are published in 12 vols., Riverside edi- 
tion ; the poems occupy 1 vol. (Houghton). The Essays, first and 
second series, are also published in Everyman's, Temple, and Handy 
Volume ; Conduct of Life is in Handy Volume ; and Representative 
Men in Everyman's and Temple. Full selections from Emerson's poems 
are given in Page 1 ; briefer in Warner, Stedman, and Library of 
American Literature. 

Longfellow. — Lyrical poems : Psalm of Life, The Reaper and the 
Flowers, The Fire of Driftwood, The Old Clock on the Stairs, Resigna- 
tion, The Rainy Day, Excelsior, The Slave's Dream, The Arsenal at 
Springfield, The Ladder of St. Augustine, My Lost Youth, The Chil- 
dren s Hour. 

Ballads and other narrative poems : The Skeleton in Armor, The 
Wreck of the Hesperus, Paul Revere *s Ride, King Robert of Sicily. 

Longer poems : The Building of the Ship, Evangeliiie, The Song of 
Hiawatha, Sees. IV-X, The Courtship of Miles Standish, The Golden 
Legend. 

Longfellow's poems are published in 6 vols., Riverside edition ; also 
in 1 vol., Cambridge and Cabinet editions (Houghton). Editions by 
other publishers are numerous, but contain only the earlier work of the 
poet. Copious selections from the poems, including Evangeline, Hia- 
watha, and Miles Standish in full, in Page ; briefer selections in 
Warner, Stedman, and Library of American Literature. 

Whittier. — Proem, Massachusetts to Virginia, Ichabod, Barbara 
Frietchie, Laus Deo ! The Barefoot Boy, Maud Midler, Snow-Bound, 
My Playmate, Barclay of Ury, Burns, Skipper Iresoii's Ride, Prelude 
to Among the Hills, In School-Days, My Psalm, The Eternal Goodness. 

Whittier's poems are published in 4 vols.. Riverside edition; also in 
1 vol., Cambridge and Cabinet editions (Houghton). Editions by 

1 For publisher and price of books referred to, see p. 278. 



19O THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

other publishers are incomplete. Full selections from Whittier, includ- 
ing Snow-Bound complete, in Page ; selections also in Stedman, 
Library of American Literatitre, and Warner. 

Lowell. — Prose : Among My Books : Shakespeare Once More. 

My Study Windows ; My Garden Acquaintance. 

Letters: vol. i, pp. 69-73, 86-90, 162-166, 214-217, 272-274. 

Poems : Rhcecus, The Present Crisis, To the Dandelion, She Came 
and Went, The Vision of Sir Launfal, In the Twilight, The First Snow- 
Tall, For an Autograph, Commemoration Ode, What Mr. Robinson 
Thinks, The Court in'. 

Lowell's complete works are published in 11 vols., Riverside edition 
(Houghton). The poems are published in 4 vols., Riverside edition, or 
in 1 vol., Cambridge and Cabinet editions (Houghton). Other editions 
are incomplete. Full selections from Lowell's poems, including The 
Vision of Sir Launfal, are given in Page. Selections also in Stedman, 
Warner, and Library of American Literature. 

Holmes. — Autocrat of Breakfast Table, Sees. I-IV. 

Poems: Old Ironsides, The Last Leaf The Voiceless, Bill and Joe, 
The Old Man Dreams, The Boys, The Chambered Nautilus, Grand- 
mother's Story of Bimker Hill, Contentment, The Deacon's Masterpiece, 
Under the Violets, Dorothy Q, A Familiar Letter, The Iron Gate. 

Holmes's complete works are published in 14 vols. The poems are 
published in 3 vols., Riverside edition ; also in 1 vol., Cambridge and 
Cabinet editions (Houghton). Other editions are incomplete. The 
Autocrat is published in Handy Volume series. Copious selections 
from Holmes's poems are given in Page ; selections also in Warner, 
Stedman, and Library of American Literature. 

Thoreau. — Excursions : The Succession of Forest Trees, Wild 
Apples. 

Walden: Economy, Sounds, Conclusion. 

Thoreau's complete works are published in 11 vols. (Houghton). 
Walden is also published in Everyman's and Handy Volume. 

For fuller discussion of the writers in this chapter, see E. C. Sted- 
man's Poets of America (Houghton), Barrett Wendell's Literary His- 
tory of America (Scribner), W. P. Trent's American Literature 
(Appleton), C. F. Richardson's American Literature (Putnam), 
W. C. Lawton's New England Poets (Macmillan), G. E. Woodberry"s 



READING FOR CHAPTER IV 191 

Makers of Literature (Macmillan), G. R. Carpenter's American Prose 
(Macmillan), T. W. Higginson's Old Cambridge (Macmillan), W. D. 
Howells's Literary Friends and Acquaintances (Harper), J. J. Chap- 
man's Emerson and Otlier Essays (Scribner), E. E. Hale's James 
Russell Lowell and his Friends (Houghton), G. W. Curtis's Literary 
and Social Essays (Harper). See also the lives of Emerson, Whittier, 
and Thoreau in the American Men of Letters series (Houghton), and 
H. E. Scudder's Life of Lowell (Houghton), and the lives of Emerson 
and Whittier in the English Men of Letters series (Macmillan). 



CHAPTER V 

THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP - ORATORS, NOVELISTS, 
AND HISTORIANS 

Daniel Webster George Bancroft 

Nathaniel Hawthorne William H. Prescott 

Harriet BeecJier Stowe Francis Parkman 
John Lothrop Motley 

This chapter continues the story of literary achievement 
in New England, taking up the orators, the writers of 
fiction, and the historians. The period it covers, from 
1835 to 1870, resembles the Colonial period in that it was 
a time when great national issues were at stake, and con- 
sequently a period when oratory flourished. For twenty 
years before the Civil War there were threatenings in the 
air ; the interests of the North and South were not the 
same, and the fear of a disunited country was ever a grim 
specter in the background. To reconcile the two sections 
and thus preserve the Union unbroken, was a task that 
might well inspire an orator. On the other hand, the 
cause of the slave seemed to many the cause of prostrate 
humanity, and with fiery words they strove to arouse men 
to wipe out the shame of a nation. Two great causes, 
then, inspired the orators of the time ; the chief spokes- 
man of union was Daniel Webster, the chief pleaders 
for the cause of the slave were Charles Sumner and Wen- 
dell Phillips. These three are taken as representative of 
the many orators of the period. 

192 



DANIEL WEBSTER 



193 



Daniel Webster (1 782-1 852) was the son of a poor 
farmer. He was born at Salisbury, N.H., Oct. 24, 1782. 
As a child he was delicate ; his chief characteristics were 
a love of reading and a memory which enabled him 
to learn by heart long passages from his favorite books. 
This determined his father to send him to college, and he 
went to Dartmouth. Here he became known for his 
power as a debater. After graduation he taught school 
for a time, to help his younger brother through college ; 
then he studied law. He prac- 
ticed in Portsmouth, N.H., and 
his ability led to his election to 
Congress. Soon afterward he 
removed to Boston. The Dart- 
mouth College case which he ar- 
gued before the Supreme Court 
at Washington, and won, gave 
him a national reputation as a 
lawyer, while his speech at the 
laying of the corner-stone of the 
Bunker Hill monument made 
him known as a great orator. 
In 1823 he was elected to the 
Senate, and as a member of that 

body delivered in 1830 his famous Reply to Haync. He 
was twice appointed Secretary of State, filling the position 
with marked ability, and everything seemed to point to 
the Presidential chair as his destiny. In 1850 Henry 
Clay introduced into Congress his famous compromise 
measure on the slavery question. Webster's ardent desire 
to preserve the Union at any cost led him, in his Seventh- 
of-Marcli Speech, to support Clay's measures. This was 
looked upon by the North as a desertion of the cause, and 




£2 ''&*et- ^Jh£?r 



194 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

brought down a very storm of indignation. Whittier's 
poem Ichabod has already been referred to as expressing 
the popular feeling at this time. This speech wrecked 
Webster's ambitions. He died a disappointed man. 

Webster's great speeches include the two addresses at 
the Bunker Hill monument, the second delivered at the 
completion of the structure ; an address at Plymouth in 
1820, the Reply to Hayne, and a discourse on Adams and 
Jefferson. Their style is dignified yet never stiff, the 
thought is always clear, and they have a strength like that 
of a great river. When we read his speeches to-day, we 
lose of course the effect produced by the personality of the 
orator. That effect in Webster's case must have been ex- 
traordinary. His appearance is thus described by Carlyle : 
" The tanned complexion, that amorphous, crag-like face, 
the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows, like dull 
anthracite furnaces, needing only to be blown ; the mastiff 
mouth, accurately closed. He is a magnificent specimen." 
With this impressive appearance, Webster had a voice of 
unusual sweetness and volume. When he was a boy, he 
used to charm the old farmers by reading aloud to them. 
In his maturity his voice was like a great organ. Imagine 
the following passage, the close of the Reply to Hayne, 
delivered with all the eloquence of such a man : 

''When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun 
in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored 
fragments of a once glorious Union, on states dissevered, discordant, 
belligerent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched it may be in 
fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather be- 
hold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored 
throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies 
streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted nor 
a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrog- 
atory as 'What is all this worth?' nor those other words of delusion 



SUMNER, PHILLIPS, HAWTHORNE 1 95 

and folly, ' Liberty first and Union afterwards, 1 but everywhere, spread 
all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as 
they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the 
whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American 
heart, ' Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable ! ' " 

Charles Sumner (1811-1874) was the leading speaker 
in Congress of the anti-slavery party. He was a greater 
scholar than Webster, and his moral earnestness was as 
intense as Whittier's. One of his notable speeches was 
that on the Kansas-Nebraska bill. In some respects he 
was a man ahead of his time : his greatest address, The 
True Grandeur of Nations, was an eloquent plea for the 
abolition of war ; it antedated the Hague Convention by 
half a century. 

Wendell Phillips (1811-1884) was another famous 
champion of the anti-slavery cause. Sumner defended it 
in Congress, Phillips before the people. He went up and 
down the land advocating emancipation with all the re- 
sources of a great public speaker : ready wit, natural elo- 
quence, wide knowledge, and the zeal of the reformer. 
After the war he became one of the most illustrious 
lyceum lecturers of the time ; his addresses on The Lost 
Arts and Toussamt U Ouvei'ttire delighted thousands of 
audiences, and may still be read with pleasure. 

Turning now to the writers of fiction in New England, 
we find one name easily preeminent, that of Nathaniel 
Hawthorne (1804- 1864). He was born in Salem, Mass., 
July 4, 1804. One of his ancestors had been a judge in 
the famous witchcraft trials, and tradition says that one 
of his victims called down a curse upon the judge's head. 
As a child Hawthorne was delicate, and for two years was 
kept from school, studying with a tutor at home. He was 
a great reader, and it is significant that his early 



196 



THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 



favorites were Spenser's Faerie Queene, Bunyan's Pil- 
grim's Progress, and TJie Newgate Calendar y a record of 
famous English criminal trials. The two great English 
allegories bore fruit later in a number of allegorical tales, 
and The Newgate Calendar foreshadows the stories dealing 
with the problem of sin. Hawthorne went to Bowdoin 
College, graduating in 1829. Longfellow was a classmate 
of his, but not an especial friend ; Horatio Bridge and 

Franklin Pierce were his inti- 
mate companions. 

After graduation Hawthorne 
returned to Salem and lived a 
life of strange seclusion. He 
read or wrote much of the day, 
and at night wandered about 
the town or on the seashore. 
He felt that he had the power 
to become a writer, and he 
practiced his art as no other of 
our authors has done. For 
twelve years he wrote, burning 
most of his work as unworthy. 
A few stories and sketches were 
all that he published, and for these he received little pay 
and no reputation. He says of this period, speaking of 
the room he used as a study : " Here I sat a long, long 
time, waiting patiently for the world to know me, and 
sometimes wondering why it did not know me sooner, or 
whether it would ever know me at all." 

In 1836 his sketches and stories were gathered into a 
book, with the title Twice-Told Tales, The publisher was 
so doubtful about the venture that Hawthorne's friend 
Bridge had to guarantee him against loss. The book was 




<sfez%r<su<.J^ ' J%&4rZ£*?&4. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 1 97 

not a losing venture, nor was it a success. Longfellow 
wrote a generous review of it, and Poe praised it in another 
magazine and predicted the author's success. Yet the 
public was indifferent. 

Hawthorne now held for a short time a position in the 
Custom House at Boston, and later joined the famous 
Brook Farm community. This was a group of enthusias- 
tic people, literary and otherwise, who bought a farm near 
Roxbury, Mass., and set up a community where all should 
labor together, sharing alike in the results of their labor, 
and carrying on literary and philosophical discussions in 
the intervals of farm work. A few months of this sufficed 
for Hawthorne. He wrote in his diary : " Is it a praise- 
worthy matter that I have spent five golden months in pro- 
viding food for cows and horses? It is not so." He now 
married Sophia Peabody and settled in Concord, Mass., 
occupying the old manse which had been the home of Em- 
erson. Here he spent three happy years. "He met 
Emerson, Channing, Thoreau, and others, and associated 
with people more than he had done before. His literary 
work at this time was collected into two volumes called 
Mosses from an Old Manse ; the introductory sketch gives 
a picture of his surroundings and life at this time. 

But authorship still refused to yield enough for even his 
modest needs, so Hawthorne took a position in the Custom 
House at Salem. Losing this through a change in the ad- 
ministration, he removed to Lenox, Mass., and there wrote 
his first novel, The Scarlet Letter. When this was finished 
he feared to show it to his publisher, so doubtful was he 
after his many discouragements. It was published in 1850, 
and for the first time its author tasted the sweets of suc- 
cess. The next year he wrote The House of the Seven 
Gables, and a collection of stories for children called The 



198 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

Wonder-Book. In 1852 he returned to Concord and the 
same year published The Blithedale Romance. When 
Franklin Pierce was elected President, he appointed Haw- 
thorne consul at Liverpool. He remained abroad for 
seven years, the latter part of the time in Italy. The re- 
sults of this foreign experience were seen in his next books: 



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THE OLD MANSE 



<9//r 6>/<^ Home, a series of sketches of English life, and 
The Marble Faun, a romance of Italy. 

Hawthorne returned to America in i860, and planned 
other works, some of which he began but did not live to 
complete. He died in 1864 while on a trip to the White 
Mountains in search of health. 

Hawthorne's writings may be divided into three groups : 
books for children, short stories and sketches, and ro- 
mances. The books for children include Grandfathers 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 1 99 

Chair, stories of early New England history, and The 
Wonder-Book, tales from Greek mythology. These books 
rank with Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare as among the 
classics of juvenile literature. 

To the second group, comprising short stories and 
sketches, belong the Twice-Told Tales, Mosses from an 
Old Manse, and The Snow Image. These volumes contain 
some of his best work. The descriptive sketches, such as 
Night Sketches, Birds and Bird Voices, The Old Apple 
Dealer, show his curiously minute, almost microscopic 
power of observation. The short stories are often in the 
form of allegory, such as The Celestial Railroad, The Great 
Carbuncle, and — finest of all — The Great Stone Face, in 
which the chief figure, Ernest, represents Emerson, and 
the orator represents Webster. Another group of tales 
deals with New England history in Colonial days. In such 
stories as the Legends of the Province House he invests 
the past with the halo of romance, transforming it from 
cold, clear fact to a region of shadow and mystery. Haw- 
thorne shares with Poe the credit of bringing the short 
story to a higher degree of perfection than had been pre- 
viously attained, either in America or Europe. 

Of the longer romances, TJie Scarlet Letter deals again 
with Colonial New England ; its theme is the working of 
sin in two human souls. This is handled with such in- 
sight and such artistic restraint as Hawthorne alone among 
our writers possessed. The House of the Seven Gables is 
less intense, and is relieved by humor ; yet this too has for 
its theme an ancestral wrong and its strange vengeance. 
The Blithedale Romance was suggested by Hawthorne's 
Brook Farm experience, though it is by no means a record 
of that experience. It is less successful than the other 
romances. The Marble Faun has its scene in Rome. The 



200 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

beauty of the city, majestic in its ruin, the wonders of its 
art, the charm of the past that lingers about everything, 
are all interpreted for us here. Against this background 
Hawthorne paints another study of the effects of sin upon 
the soul. It is as if the curse called down upon the old 
Puritan judge had descended upon the head of his great- 
grandson, so potent a hold has this theme upon Haw- 
thorne's mind. 

It remains to say a few words about his work in general. 
One characteristic is a touch of the supernatural. He 
gives us no ghosts nor witches, nothing so improbable ; 
but there are hints and shadows and half-suggestions that 
make a sort of twilight atmosphere about his page. His 
style is of that perfection that evades analysis ; you cannot 
ticket off its qualities, it is simply a perfect medium for 
his thought. All in all, he is not only one of our greatest 
writers, but one of the greatest artists in prose of the 
nineteenth century. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), author of Uncle 
Tom's Cabin, is an example of a writer famous for a single 
book. She belonged to a gifted family : her father, 
Lyman Beecher, was a distinguished New England 
minister ; her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, was the 
most famous pulpit orator of his day. As a girl she 
showed signs of unusual ability ; at ten years of age she 
wrote essays and a play. She attended her sister's school 
at Hartford, Conn., and afterward taught there. In 
1832 the family removed to Cincinnati. Harriet visited 
in Kentucky, and saw something of slavery. In 1836 
she married Rev. Calvin E. Stowe, a professor in the 
theological seminary at Cincinnati. She wrote occasion- 
ally, chiefly for newspapers. A new paper, The National 
Era, was established in Washington to aid the anti-slavery 



HARRIET BEECH ER STOWE 



201 




cause. In April, 185 1, she sent to this the first chapters of 
Uncle Toms Cabin, which was published as a serial. For 
this she received $300. When the story was published 
in book form, three thousand copies were sold the first 
day, and within five years the 
sale reached half a million. It 
was translated into all the lan- 
guages of the civilized world, 
was dramatized almost at once, 
and is still widely popular as a 
novel and as a play. Its effect 
upon its readers at the time 
may be judged from the fact 
that historians agree that this \ Wf 
book was one of the causes of j 

the Civil War. 

Mrs. Stowe continued to write 
for the rest of a long life. The /^tf-y / ^&B^^>~<~^ 
Minister's Wooing was a story 

of Colonial New England ; Oldtown Folks contains some 
capital sketches of New England life and character ; but 
the success of Uncle Tom's Cabin was not repeated. She 
spent much time and money to help the South in the slow 
work of rebuilding after the war. 

Uncle Toms Cabin is undoubtedly a great book, great 
in its faults as in its merits. That it is not a true picture 
of Southern life is now generally admitted. Mrs. Stowe 
had little opportunity to know the real South, and the 
strong moral purpose with which she wrote led her to 
paint the darker side of what she saw. Considered as a 
novel, its structure is weak. What, then, gives it its 
wonderful hold upon readers ? The strength of the book 
lies in its appeal to our emotions. It is one of the most 



202 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

pathetic stories ever written. And as pure pathos cannot 
be endured long, Mrs. Stowe has introduced humor, in the 
character of Topsy. Her descriptive power, too, makes 
us see the characters in a very real setting. The institu- 
tion of slavery had created in the South a state of society 
somewhat like that of the old feudal days. Its sharp 
divisions between classes, its contrast of wealth and cul- 
ture set off against ignorance and squalor, afforded oppor- 
tunities for picturesque treatment which were found 
nowhere else in our country. No Southerner could see 
this ; it required an outsider, upon whom everything made 
a vivid impression. Mrs. Stowe realized fully her oppor- 
tunity, and strove as conscientiously as Whittier to awaken 
the moral sense of the nation. She accomplished her 
purpose, and the fact that the book survives long after the 
issue has passed away shows that she was more than a 
worker in the cause of huuianity ; she was, in this book at 
least, a great creative artist. 

To the names of Hawthorne and Mrs. Stowe may be 
added that of a third writer of fiction, Louisa M. Alcott 
( 1 832-1 888). Mrs. Alcott's work, while not nearly as im- 
portant as that of the writers just discussed, was well done, 
and has given delight to three generations of young 
readers. Her best stories, Little Women, Little Men, Eight 
Cousins, and Jo's Boys, have a freshness, humor, and 
wholesome tone that have made them favorites, especially 
with girls, ever since their publication. 

The historians of this group include Bancroft, Prescott, 
Parkman, and Motley, — a distinguished company. 

George Bancroft (1 800-1 891) was the son of a clergyman 
of Worcester, Mass. He was educated at Harvard and 
continued his studies in Germany, taking his doctor's 
degree at the University of Gottingen. Returning to 



BANCROFT, PRESCOTT 203 

America, he taught for a few years ; then took up what 
he had determined to make his life-work, the writing of 
the history of the United States. The first volume of this 
appeared in 1834, the twelfth and last in 1882. In the 
meantime he had held various public offices : he was 
Secretary of the Navy in 1845-1846, minister to England 
1 846-1 849, and to Germany 1 867-1 874. In the closing 
years of his life he revised his great work and published a 
final edition, in six volumes, completed in 1885. Thus the 
History in its final form is the result of fifty years of study. 
Although called a History of the United States, it comes 
down only to the adoption of the Constitution. For Ban- 
croft, like Macaulay, worked on a vast scale. He had 
access to thousands of documents which had never been 
printed ; he had a working library of twelve thousand 
volumes all on his own chosen field, and he treated the 
early period of our history with a minuteness of detail 
and an accuracy that make his work an authority for 
scholars. Its length and rather dull style, however, pre- 
vented the work from becoming popular. 

William H. Prescott (1796- 18 59), the second of this 
group of historians, was a native of Salem, Mass., and a 
graduate of Harvard. Like Bancroft he early formed 
the idea of devoting his life to a definite field of historical 
study. This was the period of Spanish discovery and con- 
quest in South America. But scarcely had he formed this 
plan when an accident almost destroyed his sight. He 
was obliged to stay in a darkened room and to have books 
and manuscripts read to him by his secretary. In order 
to write he had a frame made with wires to serve as lines 
to guide his pencil, and against such obstacles he pro- 
duced his great historical works. 

His first book, The History of Ferdinand and Isabella, 



204 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

in three volumes, appeared in 1837. This was followed 
by The Conquest of Mexico, in 1843, and The Conquest of 
Peru, in 1847. He was engaged upon a fourth work, 
The Reign of Philip II, when he died. 

Prescott's two best-known books, The Conquest of 
Mexico and The Conquest of Peru, are written with a 
force of imagination and brilliancy of style that make them 
as interesting as novels. Later historical investigations 
have shown that some of the documents which Prescott 
used are not wholly trustworthy, so that his brilliant 
historical pictures require some toning down to make 
them faithful. But in the main Prescott is trustworthy, 
and we may well be grateful to him for giving us histories 
that read like romances. 

Francis Parkman (1 823-1893), like the other historians 
of this group, was a Massachusetts man, born in Boston 
and educated at Harvard. Before graduation he had 
planned his life work, to write the history of the conflict 
between France and England in America. To this his 
whole life was devoted. He studied law only that he 
might deal properly with the constitutional questions in- 
volved. He spent his vacations in the wilderness, that he 
might see life as the early explorers saw it. A knowledge 
of Indian life and character was necessary for his purpose, 
so he went to the Rocky Mountains and joined a tribe of 
Indians, living with them seven months and undergoing 
all the hardships of savage life. The physical strain of 
this nearly cost him his life ; he came back with his con- 
stitution so shattered that for two years he could do al- 
most no work. When he began his first book, he was un- 
able to write more than six lines a day. Under such 
circumstances his struggle is even more heroic than 
Prescott's. 



PARKMAN, MOTLEY 205 

His first book, The California and Oregon Trail, was an 
account of his adventures in the West. His historical 
works include Pioneers of France in the New World, The 
Jesuits in North America, La Salle, or the Discovery of the 
Great West, Count Frontenac, A Half Century of Conflict, 
Montcalm and Wolfe, and The Conspiracy of Pontiac. In 
all there are twelve volumes, telling the story of French 
influence in America from the arrival of the first ex- 
plorers to the final downfall of French power on this con- 
tinent. Parkman's experiences enabled him to write this 
story of the woods as no mere book-worm could have 
done ; his diligence in examining all possible sources for 
written material led him to make four trips to Europe, 
studying the records of the French and English govern- 
ments. With all this he possessed an admirable style for 
historical writing and a power of analyzing a mass of 
complex facts into clear and logical form, making his 
histories always easy to read and often fascinating. 
Another qualification of the historian he had, and one 
which is rare, — impartiality. Both Bancroft and Motley 
wrote as enthusiastic friends of liberty, and sometimes 
did not quite do justice to their enemies. But Parkman 
writes in an absolutely impartial way, and therefore by 
historians themselves he is ranked highest of all our 
historical writers. John Fiske places Parkman's work 
beside that of Gibbon; there can scarcely be higher 
praise. 

John Lothrop Motley (18 14-1877), like the others of this 
group, was a son of Massachusetts, born near Boston, and 
a graduate of Harvard. He studied in Germany, and be- 
gan his literary work by writing two unsuccessful novels. 
Then he turned to history, and chose for his subject the 
struggles for liberty of the Dutch against Philip II of 



206 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

Spain. The story of how the Republic of Holland came 
into existence formed a striking parallel to the story of the 
formation of the American Republic. Motley regarded 
each of these events as chapters in the great struggle by 
which the Anglo-Saxon race established the principles of 
civil liberty and self-government. To write the story of 
this he first went to Europe, visited the scenes of the 
events he was about to describe, and secured the permis- 
sion of various governments to consult state papers, in 
order that every statement might be based upon the best 
authority. When his first book, The Rise of the Dutch 
Republic, was finished in 1856, the great English publisher 
Murray refused to take it, doubting its success. Motley 
published it at his own expense, and in England alone 
seventeen thousand copies were sold the first year. It 
was soon translated into Dutch, German, French, and even 
Russian. 

Like Bancroft, Motley held various foreign posts ; he 
was minister to Austria and later to England. But his 
life work was to record the history of the eighty years' war 
for liberty, and he continued this in two more books, The 
United Netherlands, in four volumes, i860- 1868, and John 
of Bameveldy 1874. Motley ranks as one of our great 
historians. He was as painstaking in his investigations 
as Bancroft, and possessed a style that made him far 
more readable. He chose a period of history that was 
intensely dramatic, and treated it so that his work is not 
only history, it is literature. His pictures of Philip II and 
of William the Silent are among the masterpieces of his- 
torical portraiture. His wit, his command of satire, his 
brilliancy of execution, fairly entitle him to a place among 
the first of literary historians. 



READING FOR CHAPTER V 20? 



READING FOR CHAPTER V 

Webster. — One of the following orations : First Bunker Hill Ora- 
tion, Adams and Jefferson, Reply to Hayjie. 

Webster's works are published in 6 vols. Great Orations of Webster, 
i vol. (Little, Brown & Co.). Selections in D. J. Brewer's World's Best 
Orations and T. B. Reed's Modern Eloquence. 

Hawthorne. — Short stories, one of the following groups : From 
Twice-Told Tales: The Great Carbuncle, David Swan, The Gray 
Champion, The Ambitious Guest. 

From The Snow Image : The Snow Image, The Great Stone Face, 
Ethan Brand, The Man of Adama?it. 

From Mosses from an Old Manse : The BirtJimark, Birds and Bird- 
Voices, Young Goodman Brown, Feathe?-top. 

Romances, one of the following : The Scarlet Letter, The Marble 
Faim, The House of the Seven Gables. 

Hawthorne's complete works are published in 13 vols., Riverside 
edition (Houghton). Twice-Told Tales, Snow Image, and Mosses 
fro7n an Old Manse are in Handy Volume. 1 The House of the Seven 
Gables and The Scarlet Letter are in Everyman's and Handy Volume. 

Stowe. — Uncle Tom's Cabin (Houghton) . 

Prescott. — Conquest of Mexico, Bk. I, Chap. III. 
Prescott's works are published in 16 vols. (Lippincott) . Conquest of 
Peru is in Everyman's. 

Parkman. — Conspiracy of Pontiac, Chaps. I, II : Jesuits in North 
America, Chaps. I, III, IV. 

Parkman's complete works are published in 12 vols. (Little, Brown 
& Co.). The Conspiracy of Pontiac is in Everyman's; Oregon Trail 
in Handy Volume. 

Motley. — Rise of the Dutch Republic, Part I, Chap. I. 
Motley's works are published in 17 vols. (Harper). The Rise of 
the Dutch Republic is in Everyman's. 

1 For publisher and price of books referred to, see p. 278. 



208 THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP 

For fuller discussion of the writers in this chapter, see references at 
end of Chap. IV, and in addition L. H. Vincent's American Literary 
Masters (Houghton), H. James's Life of Hawthorne in the English 
Men of Letters series (Harper), J. Hawthorne's Nathaniel Hawthorne 
and his Wife (Houghton), J. T. Field's Yesterdays with Authors 
(Houghton) ; the lives of Hawthorne, Prescott, and Parkman in 
the American Men of Letters series (Houghton), and the life of Web- 
ster in the American Statesmen series (Houghton). 



CHAPTER VI 
EARLY SOUTHERN WRITERS 

William G. Simms Paid H. Hayne 

Edgar Allan Poe Henry Timrod 

We have seen that the New England states in the 
period from 1830 to 1870 produced eminent writers in 
nearly every department of literature. In the same period 
the South produced but one writer of the first rank. The 
reasons for the comparatively small literary product of this 
section may be found largely in social and economic con- 
ditions. The life of the South early developed two classes 
of people. The ruling class lived on large plantations 
whose fertile soil assured them ample revenues, enabling 
them to live at their ease like English country gentlemen. 
Below this class were the slaves and poor whites, who per- 
formed most of the labor. Contrast this with conditions 
in New England, where a poor soil and a rigorous climate 
forced men to their utmost exertions, and where practically 
all men were upon a level, so that competition was far 
keener. Thus the struggle for existence sharpened the 
wits of the New Englander. Further, the people of New 
England lived from the first in towns, and it was easy 
to establish schools for the community. In the South a 
family living in the middle of its great estate was separated 
by miles from the next family ; roads were poor, and no 
common schools were established. The children were 
taught in the home, the young men sometimes went to 

209 



210 EARLY SOUTHERN WRITERS 

Europe to complete their education, for the colleges were 
few and these of a low standard ; so the lack of educa- 
tional facilities retarded the intellectual progress of the 
South. Again, there was little to encourage authorship. 
If one wrote a book, he must go North for a publisher. 
If he desired to live by literary work, the magazines to 
which he must turn for support were published in Philadel- 
phia or New York. 

Such in general was the condition of the South before 
the war. When the war came, it absorbed the whole 
strength of the people to a far greater extent than in the 
North, and its close left them in such a state of exhaustion 
that literary achievement was hardly possible for a genera- 
tion. Making allowances for these conditions, then, we 
shall find that the South has contributed its share to Amer- 
ican literature ; in Poe alone it has given us a w T riter whom 
many foreign critics consider our greatest. 

The earliest of this group of Southern writers was 
William Gilmore Simms (i 806-1 870). His fame has al- 
most passed away, but in his day he was the most conspicu- 
ous literary figure of the South, and his home in Charleston 
was the center of Southern literary life. He was a man of 
letters by occupation, producing poetry, dramas, essays, 
and novels. His best work was in fiction. He aimed to 
do for the South what Cooper had done for the North: to 
depict scenes and events of Colonial and Revolutionary 
days in a series of stirring romances. The Yemassee, one 
of his best stories, deals with the war between the Indians 
and the early settlers of North Carolina. The Partisan is 
a tale of Marion's men in the Revolution ; Guy Rivers 
has its scene in Georgia, Beauchampe in Kentucky. He 
was not the equal of Cooper in genius, but his novels are 
interesting as dealing with the same period of history, the 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 



211 



scenes being in the South instead of the North. In his 
pictures of Indian life and character Simms is closer to fact 
than Cooper, and his best stories still repay reading. 

Edgar Allan Poe (1809- 1849) was the son of David Poe, 
of a good old Baltimore family. David became an actor, 
married an English actress, and their son Edgar was born 
in Boston, Jan. 19, 1809. The father and mother died 
within two years, and the orphan was adopted by John 
Allan, a wealthy merchant of ^^^^^ 

Richmond. Mr. Allan took the 
boy with him to England in 
181 5, and Edgar remained there 
at school for five years. Re- 
turning to Richmond he contin- 
ued his education, and in 1826 
entered the University of Vir- 
ginia. Here his associates were 
the sons of wealthy Southerners, 
who drank and played cards for 
money. Poe contracted some 
gambling debts, which so an- 
gered his guardian that he took 
him from the University and set 
him to work in his office. Rebelling at this treatment, the 
young man left Richmond and went to Boston, where he 
enlisted in the army and served for two years with consid- 
erable credit. Mr. Allan now became reconciled and se- 
cured for Poe admission to West Point. The routine here 
was distasteful; he could not resign, so he got himself 
dismissed for neglect of duty. 

He had been writing poetry meanwhile, and had published 
a slender volume of verse, which brought him neither repu- 
tation nor money. He now went to Baltimore and tried to 




212 EARLY SOUTHERN WRITERS 

support himself by writing for magazines. He was quite 
destitute when a story of his won a prize of a hundred 
dollars. He made his home with his father's sister, Mrs. 
Clemm, and married her daughter Virginia. 

In 1835 he went to Richmond as editor of the Southern 
Literary Messenger, at a salary of eight dollars a week. 
His editorial work was very successful, but his irregular 
habits caused him to lose his position. He drifted to New 
York, to Philadelphia, to Baltimore again ; it was the same 
story. His brilliant talents obtained him new positions, his 
old habits dragged him down ; he would be absent for days, 
and resign or lose his place. The use of opium further 
weakened his powers. Friends tried to help him, but his 
exceedingly sensitive nature made it difficult, and his lapses 
into his old ways discouraged them. His life was a constant 
struggle with poverty. While he was living at Fordham in 
the outskirts of New York City, in a cottage which is still 
standing (1908), a friend visited him and found his wife 
dying of consumption. It was winter, but there was no fire 
in the house ; she was wrapped in her husband's army over- 
coat, and he sat by her, chafing her hands. After her death 
Poe had brain fever. His friends assisted him once more. 
He planned a magazine of his own, and wrote some of his 
most famous poems. But his constitution had been wrecked 
by his life; he suffered terribly at times, and sought relief 
in drugs or liquor. He became engaged to a lady of 
Richmond, and went North to arrange for the wedding. 
The next day he was found unconscious in a saloon in 
Baltimore; he was taken to a hospital and died four days 
later. 

It is a pitiful story, the saddest in our literary history. 
The character of the man has been blackened since his death 
by his enemies, and warmly defended by his friends. It is 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 213 

clear that the indulgence and petting he received as a child 
did not tend to develop self-restraint ; the child who was 
brought in to entertain the company by standing on the table 
and tossing off his little glass of wine naturally grew up to 
be a man with the taste for drink. Add to this that Poe's 
nervous temperament inclined him to stimulants and in- 
creased their effect upon him, and it will appear that much 
may be said in his defense. 

But our concern is with the writings rather than the 
character of Poe. These include a number of criticisms 
of contemporary writers, several volumes of short stories, 
and his poems. The criticism is important chiefly as show- 
ing Poe's power to perceive the work of genius in the midst 
of much that was mediocre. He was among the first to 
praise the work of Longfellow and of Lowell, and almost 
the first to recognize the genius of Hawthorne. 

Poe's short stories are more important than his criticism ; 
he ranks as one of the masters in this form of composition. 
His stories may be classified into several main groups. In 
tales like The Gold Bug, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, 
and The Purloined Letter he shows the power to contrive 
a series of incidents that utterly baffle the reader to explain, 
and yet the explanation turns out to be simple. In these 
tales Poe practically created the detective story, and later 
writers, such as A. Conan Doyle, admit that Poe was their 
teacher. 

A second group may be called tales of terror. The Pit 
a7id the Pendulum, The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart, 
are stories that depict fear so intense, so overmastering, 
that it breaks down the reason. In this power to send a 
shudder through his readers Poe stands without a rival. 

Of Poe's poetry, it may be said that no other writer 
in our literature has so great a reputation resting upon so 



214 EARLY SOUTHERN WRITERS 



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FACSIMILE OF THE MANUSCRIPT OF ONE OF POE'S STORIES 



EDGAR ALLAN POE 215 

few poems. All that he wrote may be printed in forty 
pages, his best work in half the space ; yet these twenty 
pages contain perhaps the most original work in American 
poetry. His best poems, The Raven, The Bells, Annabel 
Lee, The Haunted Palace, are familiar to every reader. In 
them we find some of the same characteristics as in his 
stories. The prevailing mood is one of sorrow or gloom ; 
a favorite theme is that of a hopeless grief. In the structure 
of his poems Poe made use of the refrain, or repetition, to 
a greater extent than had been done before. Sometimes a 
line is repeated with a word or two altered ; this is called 
a repetend. These two devices Poe used with great skill. 
Another characteristic was the use of words which suggested 
the thought by their sound ; The Bells is full of examples 
of this. 

Poe defined poetry as " the rhythmic creation of beauty." 
His poetry certainly meets this definition. It is rhythmical ; 
and more, it is musical as few other poems are. And it is 
beautiful. Its beauty is touched with sadness, which makes 
it the more beautiful. But some readers seek for more in 
poetry than beauty and music ; they ask for truth, for in- 
spiration, for solace, for spiritual help. They will not find 
these in Poe, for he did not regard them as within the prov- 
ince of poetry. Each reader, then, will decide for himself 
whether Poe is to be placed among the great poets. Within 
his province he is supreme. No other American writer 
has influenced foreign literature as Poe has done. His 
work was early translated into French, and has remained a 
favorite with that cultured nation. In his own country 
his fame has grown steadily since his death, and his best 
work is ranked with that of Hawthorne. 

Two poets remain to be noticed in this group : Hayne 
and Timrod. Both were associated with the novelist 



2l6 EARLY SOUTHERN WRITERS 

Simms, sharing his hospitality and receiving his encour- 
agement. Paul H. Hayne (i 830-1 886) was a native of 
Charleston and a nephew of the Senator Hayne to whom 
Webster made his famous Reply. He gave up law for 
literature, and gave up literature for the battlefield, where 
he served with distinction. After the war he continued to 
write, chiefly in verse. His poetry is melodious and often 
beautiful, yet it is rather lacking in originality, and no 
single poem of his can be said to be well known. 

More distinguished than Hayne was his friend Henry 
Timrod (1 829-1 867). He was a Charleston boy, and was 
educated at the University of Georgia. He acted as tutor in 
a planter's family before the war, and as correspondent for 
part of the war time. His health was shattered by the 
hardships of this period, and the rest of his life was full of 
suffering. 

His poetry is small in amount, but of high quality. 
Much of it was inspired by the scenes and events of the 
war. The Cotton Boll breathes the very spirit of the un- 
conquered South, and in its glowing color and varied music 
anticipates the work of Sidney Lanier. Magnolia Cemetery 
is a noble tribute to the fallen heroes of the Southland. 
Timrod has a depth of feeling and a spiritual intensity that 
entitle him to more recognition than he has yet received. 

Here also may be mentioned some of the fugitive poems 
of the South, many of them called forth by the war. 
Among the best of these is The Conquered Banner, by Abram 
Joseph Ryan (1 839-1 886), better known as Father Ryan. 
This poem, written after Lee's surrender, is a cry of heart- 
break, full of the pathos of the lost cause. Another poem, 
Little Giffen, is by Frank O. Ticknor (1 822-1 874). It is 
a tribute to one of the many heroes of the war, and has an 
intensity and stark strength that is seldom surpassed. 



READING FOR CHAPTER VI 217 



READING FOR CHAPTER VI 

Poe. — Poems: The Raven, Lowre, To Helen, The Bells, Annabel 
Lee, The Haunted Palace, The Conqueror Worm, The City in the Sea, 
The Sleeper, Israfel. 

Prose tales : The Gold Bug, The Fall of the House of Usher, The 
Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale 
Heart. 

Poe's complete works are published in 10 vols., edited by Woodberry 
and Stedman ; also in 17 vols., Virginia edition (Crowell). The poems 
and selected tales are also published in Handy Volume series. Full 
selections from Poe's poetry are given in Page ; x briefer in Stedman, 
Warner, and Library of American Literature. 

Hayne and Timrod are represented by selections in Stedman and 
Library of American Literature. 

For fuller discussion of the writers in this chapter, see Stedman's 
Poets of America (Houghton), S. A. Link's Pioneers of Southern Lit- 
erature (Barbee), L. Manly's Southern Literature (Johnson), C. F. 
Richardson's American Literature (Putnam), Barrett Wendell's Liter- 
ary History of America (Appleton), and the lives of Poe and Simms 
in A7nerican Men of Letters series (Houghton). 

1 For publisher and price of books referred to, see p. 278. 



CHAPTER VII 



WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE STATES 



Bayard Taylor 
Walt Whitman 



RicJiard H. Stoddard 
George William Curtis 



■0m% 



In this chapter we shall consider a group of authors 
whose work belongs chiefly to Pennsylvania and New 

York. The chief authors of 
Pennsylvania are Bayard Tay- 
lor and Thomas Buchanan Read; 
of New York, Walt Whitman, 
George William Curtis, and Rich- 
ard H. Stoddard. 

Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) 
was born at Kennett Square, 
Chester County, Pa., of Quaker 
parents. His schooling went no 
further than the village acad- 
emy. Before he was sixteen he 
wrote poems which were pub- 
lished in the local paper, and in 
the intervals of leisure from his 
work as a printer's apprentice he studied German and Span- 
ish. He had a passion for travel, and at nineteen started for 
Europe, with a capital of one hundred and fifty dollars 
and a promise from Horace Greeley that he would accept 
some letters for the New York Tribune. He spent two 

218 




/^ZU/txr-^C- 






BAYARD TAYLOR 219 

years in Europe, tramping nearly three thousand miles. 
On his return his letters to the Tribune were published in 
book form under the title Views Afoot, and met with a 
large sale. This determined Taylor's future : he was to 
be a traveler. He went to California in '49 to describe 
the gold fields; then to the Orient, visiting Egypt, Syria, 
Spain, India, and China. Returning to America in 1854, he 
made an extended lecture tour through the country, then 
was off again to northern lands, visiting Norway, Iceland, 
Sweden, and penetrating the Arctic circle. 

In the course of his travels he met and married Marie 
Hansen, the daughter of a German astronomer. He was 
ambitious to build up a large estate by his literary work, 
as Scott had done, and purchasing a tract of land near his 
birthplace, built a mansion called Cedarcroft. This in- 
volved him in debt, and he had to hurry off on his travels 
again, going to Italy and Spain. 

He held the position of lecturer on German literature 
at Cornell University for two years. In 1878 he was 
appointed minister to Germany, and began to collect ma- 
terial for a life of Goethe. It was never written, for he 
died within a year. 

Taylor was a wonderfully prolific writer : his works in 
prose and verse fill fifty-two volumes. Such rapid work 
is not apt to be lasting, and Taylor's fame has suffered 
with time. Yet his work has many merits. Of his books 
of travel, the earliest, Views Afoot, has remained the most 
popular ; all of them show an eye trained to catch what is 
new or picturesque, and a graphic style to describe it. 
When he went to a foreign country, he learned the lan- 
guage, — which he could do in a few weeks, — adopted the 
native costume, and tried to enter fully into the life of the 
people. He wrote from Constantinople : 



220 WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE STATES 

" I determined to taste the Orient as it was in reality, and so picked 
up the Arabic tongue, put on the wide trousers and adopted as many 
Eastern customs as was becoming to a good Christian. ... I wear 
the tarboosh, smoke the Persian pipe, and drop cross-legged on the 
floor with the ease of any tailor whatever." 

In addition to his pictures of travel in many lands, Tay- 
lor's German studies led him to make a translation of 
Goethe's Faust, in which the original meters are preserved 
throughout. It is a remarkable work, preserving the spirit 
of the original to a greater degree than any other transla- 
tion of the poem. Taylor's writings also include several 
novels, of which The Story of Ke7inett, whose scene is laid 
in his native village, is the best. 

It was Taylor's wish to be remembered not as a traveler 
but as a poet, and it looks as if this wish would be fulfilled. 
His books of travel, clever and entertaining as they are, yet 
lack somewhat because Taylor was neither a historian nor 
a scholar. It was said of him, rather unkindly, that he 
had traveled more and seen less than any other American. 
His poetry, however, has stood the test of time better. 
It covers a wide range, from lyric to pastoral, passing in 
later years to the dramatic form. His lyrics are his best- 
known work, including The Song of the Camp, and the 
famous Bedouin Love Song, which is set to music. The 
latter is one of the collection called Poems of the Orient, 
poems full of the fire, the passion, the color, and perfume 
of the East. In narrative poetry his best work is Lars : 
a Pastoral of Norway, a poem which so eminent a critic 
as E. C. Stedman places close to Evangeline. 

Thomas Buchanan Read (i 822-1 872), painter and poet, 
like Taylor was a native of Chester County, Pa. He 
picked up his training in art and letters during a roving 
life, partly in America, partly in Europe. Of his numer- 



READ, WALT WHITMAN 



221 



ous volumes of verse only some of the shorter poems 
survive, but these we could ill afford to lose. His Sheri- 
dan s Ride is a stirring battle-lyric ; in Drifting he 
has captured the languorous charm of Italian seas and 
skies. The picture of autumn entitled The Closing Scene, 
with its delicate landscapes and its soft, twilight music, 
is worthy of a place beside the 
work of Collins or Gray. 

Of the writers of New York 
in the period since the Knicker- 
bocker School, Whitman is easily 
the most prominent. Walt Whit- 
man (18 19-1892) was born at 
West Hills, Long Island. His 
father was a carpenter, and gave 
the boy a common-school edu- 
cation. The boy gave himself 
another education, first by ram- 
bles in the country and long 
days at the seashore, later by /%?%£& J^UtUcu^ 
the books he read : the Bible, 

Shakespeare, Ossian, Scott's novels, the best translations 
he could get of Homer, Dante, and other great classics. 
This reading was done in the intervals of his early occupa- 
tions. He had gone to work in a printing office at thir- 
teen, later taught school, wrote for newspapers, and edited 
one. Most of this time he was living in New York. The 
great and varied life of the city fascinated him ; he loved 
to be in the midst of its crowds, he made friends with om- 
nibus drivers and pilots on the ferryboats. He saw the 
celebrated people of the time : Webster, Lafayette, Hal- 
leck, Cooper, Bryant, Poe, but made no effort to meet 
them ; his companions were the common people. At 




222 WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE STATES 

thirty he took a long tour through the West and South, 
walking much of the way, stopping here and there to work 
as a printer or reporter. 

Up to this time he had written nothing worthy to be 
called literature. But this leisurely tour of our country 
had given him a sense of its greatness and of the power 
of democracy which he wished to express. After much 
thought he determined to celebrate in poetry a single 
typical person, who should stand for the average man in 
America. As he knew himself best, he took himself as his 
theme, and wrote his first book, Leaves of Grass (1855). 
The book had almost no sale, but it brought an encourag- 
ing letter from Emerson to the author. In 1862 Whit- 
man's brother, an army officer, was wounded ; Whitman 
went to the hospital to care for him, and became an army 
nurse. His genial nature and his overflowing physical 
strength made his presence better than medicine. He 
served in the hospitals and camps about Washington until 
the end of the war. These experiences resulted in a sec- 
ond volume of verse, Drum-Taps. He held a government 
clerkship in Washington for a time ; but the strain of his 
hospital service had broken his health, and in 1873 a 
stroke of paralysis obliged him to give up work. He re- 
moved to Camden, N.J., where he lived very simply, bear- 
ing poverty and ill health without complaint. His work 
was beginning to find admirers ; it was reprinted in Eng- 
land, and gained him some enthusiastic followers. He 
continued to write, publishing on his seventieth birthday a 
collection of poems entitled Sands at Seventy. In 1892 a 
complete edition of his works was published in two stout 
volumes, one containing his prose writings. In March of 
that year he died and was buried at Camden, in a tomb 
which he had himself designed. 



WALT WHITMAN 223 

The poetry of Whitman is not like that of other poets. 
He aimed, as he said, to express the democratic spirit of 
America. This was a new theme, and demanded a new 
style for its expression. The style he chose was an irreg- 
ular, unrhymed chant, sometimes suggesting the rhythmi- 
cal prose of the Old Testament. To people who thought 
that poetry must have regular rhythm and rhyme Whit- 
man's strange verse seemed not to be poetry at all. Yet it 
is often musical, with a rhythm that is not measured off 
mechanically, but seems caught from the whisper of winds 
and the roll of the sea. The following lines, from his 
memorial poem on Lincoln, show his style at its best : 

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, 
Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land, 
With the pomp of the inlooped flags, with the cities draped in black, 
With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veiled women 

standing, 
With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night, 
With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the un- 
bared heads, 
With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the somber faces, 
With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong 

and solemn, 
With all the mournful voices of the dirges poured around the coffin, 
The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs — where amid these 

you journey, 
With the tolling, tolling bells 1 perpetual clang, 
Here, coffin that slowly passes, 
I give you my sprig of lilac. 

When Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloomed. 

Whitman does not always write like this. His long 
lines are sometimes mere catalogues of names; yet out of 
the confused jumble suddenly there flashes upon you a 
picture so vivid, a metaphor so daring, a phrase so perfect, 



224 WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE STATES 

that you catch your breath as at the highest poetry. This 
unevenness makes one constantly in doubt whether to say 
that Whitman is one of our greatest poets or to say that 
he wrote incoherent prose with flashes of true poetry. 

When we turn from the style of Whitman to consider 
his thought, we find in his work several leading ideas. 
One, already mentioned, is democracy. Closely allied to 
this is his intense patriotism. He believed that it was the 
destiny of America to become the mistress of the world, 
not by force of arms, but by the spread of American 
ideas. Another of his favorite themes is comradeship, the 
simple, sincere friendship that knows no class distinction. 
There is no other poet in our language w r ho has written 
three hundred poems without one on love. Whitman 
never married; his nature gave itself to comradeship rather 
than love, and comradeship becomes the theme of his 
poems. 

His work as a whole is marked by an invincible spirit of 
hopefulness. He is never morbid, never despondent, 
never even doubtful. A splendid courage breathes from 
his book. He finds life good, all good ; he does not fear 
growing old, for age is to him the time when 

The days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really 

finished and indolent-ripe on the tree, 
Then for the teeming, quietest, happiest days of all ! 

And of death he writes poem after poem, entitling them 
Whispers of Heavenly Death. Whitman's pictures of nature 
often have a singular power and beauty. He is the poet 
of the sea, of the " splendid, silent sun," and of the " huge 
and thoughtful night." 

That his poetry has its faults is undeniable : he is some- 
times diffuse, sometimes coarse ; his assertion of democ- 



RICHARD HENRY STODDARD 22 5 

racy sometimes appears to be little more than a defiant 
swagger ; his work is sadly unequal. But the final verdict 
upon a poet's work depends less upon his faults than upon 
his merits. Whitman is certainly one of the significant 
writers of our literature, and since his death his reputation 
has grown steadily. 

Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-1903) was not a college 
man ; he attended the public schools in New York City 
and then worked in an iron foundry, studying and reading 
at night. He was a friend of Bayard Taylor and of Haw- 
thorne, and through the latter's influence obtained a place 
in the New York Custom House. Later he acted as lit- 
erary editor of various New York papers, and did editorial 
work for publishing houses. In this way he wrote a great 
deal of criticism, and exerted a wholesome influence upon 
our literature. But his poetry is his chief title to remem- 
brance. It is marked by grace and finish of style ; it has 
never become popular, but lovers of poetry find delight in 
its delicacy and dignified strength. The following lines 
show his quality : 

THE FLIGHT OF YOUTH 

There are gains for all our losses. 

There are balms for all our pain ; 
But when youth, the dream, departs, 
It takes something from our hearts, 

And it never comes aa-ain. 



We are stronger and are better, 

Under manhood's sterner reign : 
Still we feel that something sweet 
Followed youth, with flying feet, 
And will never come again. 



226 WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE STATES 

Something beautiful is vanished, 

And we sigh for it in vain : 
We behold it everywhere, 
On the earth and in the air, 

But it never comes again. 1 

George William Curtis (1824-1892) was born in Provi- 
dence, R.I., and came to New York as a boy. When he 
was eighteen, the Brook Farm project appealed to his 
idealistic nature, and thither he went, remaining two years. 
He studied German and music, drove the cows, and helped 
the women hang out the washing, all with equal zest. 
Then he went to Concord and spent a year as a disciple 
of Emerson. . Several years of foreign travel followed, 
which broadened his views. Returning to New York City, 
he engaged in editorial work. He was editor of Harper's 
Weekly from 1863 until his death, and for Harper's Maga- 
zine he wrote the monthly essays which appeared under 
the heading Editor's Easy Chair. 

Curtis is remembered almost more as the good citizen 
than as the man of letters. He was a zealous advocate of 
all wise reforms. He was one of the anti-slavery orators 
before the war, and later stood as perhaps the leading ex- 
ponent of independence in politics. He took up the cause 
of civil-service reform and worked long and faithfully to 
change what he felt to be the most dangerous feature 
in our form of government, — the spoils system. His 
speeches on political subjects have been published under 
the title Orations and Addresses. The best of his essays 
in Harper's Magazine were published in three small volumes 
entitled From the Easy Chair. They are the reflections of 
a wise, a cultured, and a sympathetic observer of American 

1 From Poetical Writings of R. H. Stoddard, copyright, 1880, by Charles 

Scribner's Sons. 



READING FOR CHAPTER VII 22/ 

life. But the book of Curtis's that has proved most popu- 
lar is Prue and I, a book half narrative, half essay, with a 
tender vein of sentiment that reminds one of Mitchell's 
Revei'ies, or of an earlier essayist who doubtless influenced 
both Mitchell and Curtis, Washington Irving. 



READING FOR CHAPTER VII 

Taylor. — Poems : Amr ant's Wooing, Hylas, Bedouin Song, Nubia, 
The Quaker Widow, Proposal, The Lost Crown, Peach Blossom, The 
Poet in the East, Metempsychosis of the Pine. 

Views Afoot: Chaps. V, VI, XII, XLIX. 

Taylor's poems are published in 2 vols., Household edition (Hough- 
ton). His travels and novels are published in 16 vols. (Putnam). 
Selected poems in Stedman, 1 Warner, and Library of American 
Literature. 

Whitman. — To the Man-of-War Bird-, Patrolling Barnegat ; Song 
of the Broad-Axe ; Dirge for Two Veterans ; Captain, My Captain ; 
Old Ireland; What best I see in Thee; foy, Shipmate, Joy! When 
Lilacs last in the Dooryard BloomW. 

Whitman's poems are published in 1 vol. (Small, Maynard & Co.). 
Copious selections from Whitman's poems in Page ; briefer in Stedman, 
Warner, and Library of American Liter -attire. 

Curtis. — Prue and I: My Chateaux. 

Curtis's works are published by Harper ; the Addresses are in 3 vols., 
Literary and Social Essays, 1 vol., Prue and I, 1 vol., Froin the Easy 
Chair, 1 vol. Prue and lis also published in Handy Volume. 

For fuller discussion of the writers in this chapter, see C. F. Richard- 
son's American Literature (Putnam), E. C. Stedman's Poets of America 
(Houghton), Barrett Wendell's Literary History of America (Apple- 
ton), John Burroughs' Walt Whitman (Houghton), G. E. Wood- 
berry's National Studies in American Letters (Macmillan), W. D. 
Howells's My Literary Passions (Harper) ; also the lives of Taylor 
and Curtis in American Men of Letters series (Houghton). 

1 For publisher and price of books referred to, see p. 278. 



CHAPTER VIII 

NEW ENGLAND SINCE 1870 

Edmund Clarence Stedman Edward Everett Hale 
Thomas Bailey Aldrich Charles Dudley Warner 

John Fiske 

In this chapter and the following ones the story of our 
literature is continued to the present time. In this Recent 
Period, since 1870, New England has lost its leadership, 
while the South, the Middle states, and the West have 
made notable contributions to our literature. Yet New 
England has not lacked distinguished writers : Stedman, 
Aldrich, Warner, and Hale, to mention no more, have 
worthily continued the traditions of the earlier period. The 
authors just named might almost have been included in 
the preceding chapter, since they were in part contem- 
porary with Longfellow and Lowell and the rest. But if 
the date of publication of important books is considered, 
it will be seen that the authors in this chapter all belong 
to the period after 1870. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman (183 3-1908), called the 
" banker poet," spent most of his life in New York City, 
but by birth, education, and intellectual kinship he belongs 
to New England. He was born in Hartford, Conn., edu- 
cated at Yale, and began his literary work as a war cor- 
respondent. He spent twelve years in journalism ; then 
finding that the demands of the daily press left him no 

228 



EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN 



229 



opportunity for literary work of a more enduring kind, he 

entered a banking house in Wall Street. His days were 

given to business, his evenings 

and holidays to literature, and 

the result is a series of volumes 

in poetry and criticism that is 

of great value. 

Stedman began as a poet, and 
like many others was stirred to 
write by incidents of the war. 
How Old Brown Took Harper s 
Ferry, Wanted — a Man, and 
the Cavalier Song are among 
the best poems of this period. 
His banking experiences sug- 
gested the graceful poem Pan 
in Wall Street, which in its light 
humor and fancy is equal to 
Holmes at his best. 

As he grew older, criticism divided his attention with 
poetry. In 1875 he published Victorian Poets, a critical 
survey of English poets of the period. This was enlarged 
some years later, and followed by a companion volume, 
Poets of America, which included writers from the begin- 
ning of our literature to the present. A third volume, 
Nature and Elements of Poetry, discusses the principles 
of poetic art. In these volumes Stedman has produced 
probably the most notable criticism that has been written 
in America. The only author who can be compared with 
him is Lowell, and while Lowell has the advantage in his 
racy style, Stedman's criticism is more deliberate, better 
balanced, than Lowell's. 

Stedman has laid lovers of literature under a further 




230 



NEW ENGLAND SINCE 1870 



obligation by his work as editor and compiler. A Victorian 
Anthology is a selection from the works of English poets of 
the period, a very treasure-house of poetry, the best things 
culled from a thousand volumes. An American Anthology 
does a similar work for American poetry; the two volumes 
are invaluable to students of literature. In connection with 
others Stedman also edited A Library of American Lit- 
erature, in ten volumes, giving 
selections and biographical 
sketches of all our authors. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836- 
1907), the second in this group 
I of New England poets, was born 
I in Portsmouth, N.H. His par- 
I ents were unable to send him to 
college, and he went to New 
York as a clerk in a store. 
The beautiful Ballad of Babie 
Bell and other poems, published 
in newspapers, soon made him 
<j7\\ OiL^A.cv known as a writer, and he re- 
ceived an editorial position. 
Later he went to Boston as editor of Every Saturday, and 
in 1 88 1 succeeded W. D. Howells as editor of the Atlantic 
Monthly, a position which he held until 1889. 

He did not write much, but he was scrupulously careful 
to perfect all that he did. Perhaps no other American 
poet took such pains with his work ; he wrote a poem as 
one would cut and polish a diamond. Babie Bell, his best- 
known poem, is as delicate and tender as childhood itself. 
A group of poems dealing with Oriental themes — Dress- 
ing the Bride, When the Sultan goes to Ispahan — are 
marked by passion and color. 




ALDRICH, HALE, WARNER 



231 



His sonnets are among the best in American poetry ; 
Fredericksburg in particular shows his power of handling 
a large theme in brief compass. 

Aldrich is equally well known for his prose writings. 
The Story of a Bad Boy, which tells of his own boyhood in 
Portsmouth, has always been a favorite book with boys. 
Several volumes of short stories show his power of com- 
pression and the exquisite finish of his style. Marjorie 
Daw, in the volume of that 
name, is one of the brightest 
and most artistic short stories 
in our literature. 

Edward Everett Hale (1822- 
), a native of Boston, au- 
thor, editor, preacher, and chap- 
lain of the United States Senate, 
is the author of more than fifty 
books, but he is chiefly remem- 
bered by a single story, The Man 
without a Country. The story is 
wholly imaginary, but so strong 
is the impression of reality it 
conveys that hundreds of read- 
ers have written to the author to ask for further infor- 
mation about the strange history it relates. It is one of 
the finest lessons in patriotism ever written. 

Charles Dudley Warner (1 829-1900) was born at Plain- 
field, Mass., and spent most of his life at Hartford, Conn., 
where Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and other liter- 
ary people were his neighbors. He was a man of letters 
by profession, editor of the Hartford Courant, and one of 
the editors of Harper s Magazine. He wrote an excellent 
Life of Irving, forming the first volume in the American 




&yCotr-ziLsL*d ^- 



232 



NEW ENGLAND SINCE 1870 



Men of Letters series. Like Aldrich, he wrote the story 
of his boyhood, — Being a Boy, a delightful picture of life 
in a New England home of the Puritan type. His best 
work is in the two volumes of essays called My Summer 
in a Garden and Back-Log Studies. Of the first of these 
books, the London Quarterly Review said it was such a 
book as " Charles Lamb might have written if he had had 
a garden." His style is as clear and pure as Irving's, and 
humor constantly lights up his pages. To Harper's Maga- 
zine he contributed a series of little essays under the head- 
ing The Editor s Drawer. The best of these have been 
reprinted in two volumes : As we were Saying and As we 
Go. In later years he was editor-in-chief of an encyclo- 
pedia of literature in thirty volumes, called A Library of 

the Worlds Best Literature, one 
f of the best collections of the 

kind that has been made. 

To Stedman and Aldrich the 
poets, Hale and Warner the 
prose writers, must be added 
the names of two historians, 
John Fiske and Justin Winsor. 
John Fiske (1 842-1 901) began 
as a student of philosophy and 
taught that subject at Harvard. 
Two brief treatises of his, The 
Destiny of Man and The Idea 
of God, are among the few books 
on philosophical subjects which 
appeal to the general reader. Later Fiske's interests turned 
to history. He took for his especial field American history 
in the Colonial and Revolutionary periods, and his eleven 
volumes on this subject are a valuable contribution. Fiske 




C___2^^^^z^^» 



WINSOR, SILL 233 

was less of an original investigator than Motley or Park- 
man ; his merit lies rather in the careful selection of mate- 
rials and in the clear and attractive style in which he set 
them forth. 

His chief works are : The Discovery of America, The Be- 
ginnings of New England, Old Virginia and Jier Neighbors, 
Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, The American Revo- 
lution, The Critical Period of American History. 

Justin Winsor (1831-1897), the librarian of Harvard Uni- 
versity, planned a history of America on different lines 
than had before been attempted. His Narrative and 
Critical History of America, in eight large volumes, is 
written by a number of scholars, each taking the period 
to which he has given special study. It is a work of value, 
but rather for the student than the general reader. The 
same plan was followed later by Professor Albert Bushnell 
Hart of Harvard in his work The American Nation, which 
consists of thirty volumes by different writers, making 
the fullest record of our country's history that has vyet 
appeared. 

Two other New England writers, E. R. Sill and Emily 
Dickinson, belong to the class of minor poets. The term 
signifies one no less truly a poet, but whose work is too 
slight in substance or too small in amount to win a place 
among great writers. 

Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1 887), a native of Windsor, 
Conn., spent his life as a teacher in California and Ohio. 
He wrote two slender volumes of verse, of high quality. 
At least one of his poems, The Fool's Prayer, is certain 
of a place in any collection of the best American verse. 
In spirituality his work often suggests Emerson. Nearly 
all his poems are short ; his power of compression is seen 
in these lines : 



234 NEW ENGLAND SINCE 1870 

LIFE 1 

Forenoon and afternoon and night, — Forenoon, 
And afternoon, and night, — Forenoon, and — what! 
The empty song repeats itself. No more ? 
Yea, that is Life : make this forenoon sublime, 
This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer, 
And Time is conquered, and thy crown is won. 

Emily Dickinson (1 830-1 886) was a strange, shy woman, 
who lived in almost perfect seclusion in her father's house 
at Amherst, Mass. To a friend who wrote asking who 
her companions were, she replied : " Hills, and the sun, 
and my dog. He is better than people, for he knows but 
he won't tell." Her poems, all published after her death, 
are all short, many containing but four lines. They are 
marked by fresh and original expression and intense spir- 
ituality. The following lines will show her quality : 

A DAY 2 
I'll tell you how the sun rose, — 
A ribbon at a time ; 
The steeples swam in amethyst, 
The news like squirrels ran. 

The hills untied their bonnets, 
The bobolinks begun. 
Then I said softly to myself 
" That must have been the sun ! " 

But how he set, I know not. 
There seemed a purple stile 
Which little yellow boys and girls 
Were climbing all the while, 

Till when they reached the other side, 
A dominie in gray 
Put gently up the evening bars, 
And led the flock away. 

1 Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.; used by permission. 

2 Copyright, Little, Brown, & Co.; used by permission. 



READING FOR CHAPTER VIII 235 

In fiction, while New England has produced no author 
worthy to stand beside Hawthorne, excellent work has 
been done by a number of writers. Two of these deserve 

special mention, Sarah Orne Jewett(i849 ) and Mary 

E. Wilkins-Freeman. Miss 'Jewett is a native of Ber- 
wick, Me. In Deephaven, A Country Doctor, The Country 
of the Pointed Firs, and other books she has described the 
beautiful scenery of the Maine coast and the old-fashioned 
country people whose quiet lives are spent there. 

Mrs. Freeman, better known as Mary E. Wilkins 

(1862 ), was born at Randolph, Mass. She chose as 

her field the life of the New England village. Like Jane 
Austen in an earlier day, she describes with minute realism 
the life of the provincial town, with its gossip and jealous- 
ies, its love affairs and small tragedies, the whole done 
with such fidelity and such art that it is like an exquisite 
miniature. Her best work is in the form of the short story, 
in the two volumes called A New England Nun and A 
Humble Romance. She has also written several novels, 
such as Jerome, The Debtor, and others. 

READING FOR CHAPTER VIII 

Stedman. — Poems : Toujours Amour, The Doorstep, Fuit Ilium, 
Pan in Wall Street, Cavalry Song, Falstapfs Song, Song from a 
Drajna, Wanted — A Man, The Undiscovered Country, The Dis- 
coverer, Hawthorne. 

Stedman's poems are published in 1 vol., Household edition (Hough- 
ton). Selected poems in Stedman, 1 Warner, and Library of American 
LiteraUire. 

Aldrich. — Poems : Babie Bell. Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book, Tiger 
Lilies, When the Sultan goes to Ispahan, Before the Rain, After the 
Rain, The Tragedy, Guilelmus Rex, Fredei'icksburg, Sleep. 

Prose : Ma?'jorie Daw. 

1 For publisher and price of books referred to, see p. 278. 



236 NEW ENGLAND SINCE 1870 

Aldrich's poems are published in 1 vol., Household edition (Hough- 
ton). His prose works are published by the same house. Selections 
in Stedman, Warner, and Library of American Literature. 

Warner. — My Summer in a Garden : First Three Weeks. 
The above book and Back-Log Studies are published by Houghton ; 
As we Go and later Essays by Harper. 

Hale. — The Man without a Country (Little, Brown, & Co.). 

Fiske. — The Discovery of America, vol. i, Chap. V. 

Fiske's historical works are published in 11 vols. (Houghton). 

For fuller discussion of the writers in this chapter, see the references 
at the end of Chap. VI ; also H. C. Vedder's American Writers of To- 
Bay (Silver, Burdett) and Bayard Taylor's Essays and Notes (Putnam). 



CHAPTER IX 

THE NEW SOUTH 

Sidney Lanier Joel Chandler Harris 

George W. Cable Thomas Nelson Page 

James Lane Allen 



The close of the Civil War left the South with little 
energy for literature, but in the years since 1870 a group 
of writers has produced work of much significance. This 
Southern literature, too, has a character of its own; the 
work of Sidney Lanier, of Joel Chandler Harris, of 
Lafcadio Hearn, stands out as something distinctive. 
Their writings are not modeled after classic authors ; they 
have found new and beautiful modes of expression. This 
freshness and originality has led certain critics to predict 
that the South is destined to become the leader in American 
literature. Already it is rich in promise. 

The life of Sidney Lanier (1 842-1 881) well illustrates 
the difficulties of a literary career in the South in the 
earlier days. He was a native of Macon, Ga., and 
attended Oglethorpe College, then a struggling institution 
little more than a high school. After graduation he en- 
listed in the Confederate army, and served through the 
war. He was captured, and imprisonment and subsequent 
exposure planted in him the seeds of consumption. After 
the war he taught school and studied law for a time, but 
his heart was not in these occupations. From a child he 

237 



238 



THE NEW SOUTH 




had a wonderful talent for music. Before he could write 
legibly he could play the flute, guitar, piano, and organ. 

The flute was his favorite in- 
strument, and in prison he 
cheered the hearts of his fel- 
lows by his music. He had a 
remarkable gift of improvisation ; 
he could continue this for hours, 
saying that tunes were all the 
time singing in his head. The 
other passion of his life was 
poetry. He burned for distinc- 
tion in this. That he might 
gain a solid foundation for his 
work he studied French and 
German while in camp, and 
later read widely in early Eng- 
lish literature. He said of Poe : " He did not know 
enough." 

In 1873 he went North, to live if he could by his flute 
or his pen. In Baltimore he obtained a position in an 
orchestra, and studied with the passion of one who for the 
first time has access to a great library. He had married 
in 1867, and the needs of his family forced him to write 
boys' books and magazine articles, leaving but little time 
for writing poetry. His failing strength drove him to 
Florida and to Texas in search of health. In 1879 he was 
appointed lecturer in English literature in Johns Hopkins 
University, and for the first time was free to devote him- 
self to study and poetry. But the relief came too late ; 
he had held the position but two years when death closed 
his career. 

Lanier's works in prose include The Boys' King Arthur 



SIDNEY LANIER 



239 



and The Boys' Percy, two books in which old romantic 
stories are retold in simple language. His lectures at the 
university were published in two volumes, The Englisli 
Novel and The Science of English Verse. The latter book 
is noteworthy as setting forth the theory upon which 
Lanier's own poetry was composed. Briefly, he held that 
poetry was closely allied to music, and endeavored to carry 
the principles of musical composition into poetry. In such 
poems as The Marshes of Glynn there is no fixed length of 
lines. They vary with the thought expressed: now long, 
full, and stately ; now short and tremulous. The words are 
chosen for their sound-values as well as for their meaning. 
One of his longer poems, The Symphony, even attempts to 
give through words the effect of the various instruments 
in an orchestra. And Lanier's poetry is more than mere 
beauty of sound. Unlike Poe, he held that the poet had a 
message to deliver ; The Symphony is a protest against the 
heartless commercialism of our time. Lanier had a deep 
and tender love for nature ; his descriptions are notable 
not only for their beauty, but for their frequent spiritual 
suggestion. To gain an adequate idea of Lanier's writ- 
ings one should read aloud one of the longer poems, 
such as Corn or The Marshes of Glynn. 

Of recent years the South has given us a number of 
writers of fiction, of whom the most prominent are 
George W. Cable, Joel Chandler Harris, Thomas Nelson 
Page, and James Lane Allen. Much of their work has 
been in the form of short stories, and is remarkable for 
its strong local color. Each writer has taken a certain 
locality or a certain class of people as his province, 
and given a faithful picture of them, describing their 
quaint ways and usually reproducing the dialect of the 
locality. 




240 THE NEW SOUTH 

George W. Cable (1844 ) chose for his field the life 

of the Creoles of Louisiana. He was well fitted to treat 
this, as he was born in New Orleans, and his early life 
as a surveyor and as a newspaper reporter brought him 
into contact with Creole life on the plantations and in 
the city. His first stories appeared in Scribner's Monthly; 
they were reprinted later as Old Creole Days. The 
delicate pathos and humor of these sketches won fame 

for the author, and encouraged 
by success, he devoted himself 
to literature. He has published 
several novels, of which The 
Grandissimes, Madame Del- 
pJiine, and Dr. Sevier are con- 
sidered the best. 

Joel Chandler Harris (1848- 
\ 1908) was born in Eatonton, 

Ga. He gained most of his 
education in a printing office, 
became a reporter on the At- 
lanta Constitution, and later one 
^^^^^^ of its editors. A few years 
/ before his death he was made 

editor of a new magazine, called in his honor Uncle 
Remits } s Magazine. His early life made him familiar 
with the negro, — not the idealized negro of Uncle Tom's 
Cabin nor the caricature negro of the minstrel show, but 
the old-time plantation darky. In his books Harris pre- 
sented the negro truly for the first time in literature. 
And he did this not only with fidelity, but with such art, 
with such rich humor, such quaint philosophy, that the 
"Uncle Remus" stories have taken their place as little 
classics. His best books, Uncle Remits, Nights with Uncle 



PAGE, ALLEN 24 1 

Remus, and others are made up of tales many of which 
had been handed down from generation to generation 
of dusky story-tellers. It was his good fortune to see 
what a rich field there was in the adventures of Brer 
Rabbit and his companions, and to write them for our 
delight. 

Thomas Nelson Page (1853 ) was born in Hanover 

County, Va., educated at the University of Virginia, and 
later practiced law in Richmond. His earliest memories 
were of the South in the old slave-holding days ; his 
youth was passed in the trying period when the old or- 
der had passed away and the South was painfully ad- 
justing itself to new conditions. From such scenes he 
drew the material for his stories. He presents the old 
aristocratic South, with its beauty and its chivalry, its 
faithful servitors, and he shows the pathos of the days 
that followed. His first book, a volume of short stories 
called In Ole Virginia, contains some of his best work. 
Two Little Confederates is an autobiography; Red Rock, 
a story of Reconstruction days. 

James Lane Allen (1850 ) was born near Lexington, 

in the famous bluegrass region of Kentucky. Like the 
other Southern writers he found his material in the scenes 
and characters of his native place. Like the others, too, 
he began with short stories in the magazines, which he 
collected into a volume called Flute and Violin. He gives 
us the atmosphere of a place through poetic description 
rather than by the use of dialect; a lover of nature, his 
descriptions have a delicate beauty that makes them one of 
the chief charms of his work. This is well seen in the 
novelette A Kentucky Cardinal. The Choir Invisible and 
The Reign of Laiv are longer novels, the scenes laid in his 
favorite Kentucky. 



242 THE NEW SOUTH 

Lafcadio Hearn (i 850-1904) might almost be called a man 
without a country, since he was born on one of the islands 
of Greece, educated in England, worked as a journalist in 
America, and died as a teacher of literature in Japan. By 
his style and genius, however, he belongs with the writers 
of the South. His first novel, Chita, A Memory of Last 
Island, a story of the destruction of a fashionable watering 
place in the Gulf, contained descriptive passages marked 
by such beauty, richness, and music as English style had 
hardly known since De Quincey. After some years spent 
in the far East he published Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan 
and other works, showing an intimate knowledge of the 
strange myths and superstitions of old Japan. 

Mary N. Murfree (1850 ), born in Murfreesboro, 

Tenn., has published most of her work under the pen name 
of " Charles Egbert Craddock." In her books, In the 
Tennessee Mozmtains, The Prophet of the Great Smoky 
Mountains, and others, she describes the picturesque moun- 
tain people, living far from the railroads, making their 
moonshine whisky, and executing stern justice with their 
own hands. The stories are set in a background of natu- 
ral scenery that adds much to the dramatic effect. 

F. Hopkinson Smith (1838 ), born in Baltimore, but 

long a resident of New York, is known as a painter in 
water colors and a successful civil engineer as well as an 
author. He has published a number of volumes of stories, 
short and long ; among the best is Colonel Carter of Car- 
tersville. This is not a local study, but the study of a type ; 
Colonel Carter is the typical Southern gentleman of the 
old school, and one of the most delightful characters in 
recent fiction. 

One of the latest comers in this group of Southern 
writers of fiction is Miss Ellen Glasgow, a daughter of Vir- 



READING FOR CHAPTER IX 243 

ginia, whose novels, The Deliverance, The Battle Grotind, The 
Voice of the People, and The Ancient Law, deal with the 
Reconstruction and later periods, the scenes laid in the 
tobacco country of Virginia. Her work is marked by a 
finish of style and an unusual power of character drawing. 



READING FOR CHAPTER IX 

Lanier. — Poems : Song of the Chattahoochee, Ta?npa Robins, The 
Stirrup dtp, The Mocking Bird, Ballad of Trees and the Master, Song 
for the Jacquerie, Sunrise, The Marshes of Glynn. 

Laniers poems are published in 1 vol. (Scribner). Full selec- 
tions in Page 1 ; briefer in Stedman, Warner, and Library of American 
Literature. 

Cable. — Old Creole Days (Scribner). 

Harris. — Uncle Remus and his Pr tends (Houghton). 

Page. — In Ole Virginia : Meh Lady (Scribner) . 

Allen. — A Kentucky Cardinal (Harper). 

Fuller discussion of the writers mentioned in this chapter will be 
found in E. C. Stedman's Poets of America (Houghton), W. M. Bas- 
kervill's Southern Writers (Barbee), L. Manly's Southern Literature 
(Johnson). 

1 For publisher and price of books referred to, see p. 278. 



CHAPTER X 

RECENT WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE STATES 

Joint Burroughs Henry James 

W. D. Howells F. Marion Crawford 

Frank R. Stockton 

In comparing the literary work produced in the Middle 
states in the recent period with that of the period preced- 
ing, a marked contrast is noticed in the form of the work. 
In the earlier period the chief writers — Whitman, Read, 

Taylor, Stoddard, and Curtis — 
were all essayists or poets. In 
this period the noted writers — 
Howells, James, Crawford, and 
Stockton — are novelists. The 
one exception is the essayist 
Burroughs, whose work will be 
considered first. 

John Burroughs (1837 ) 

is a New Yorker, but not a city 
dweller. He was born on a 
farm near Roxbury, N.Y., and 
after a few years spent in 
teaching school and in a gov- 
ernment clerkship in Washing- 
ton, he purchased a few acres of land on the Hudson, 
in the Catskill Mountain region, where he lives, dividing 

244 




^^l^^^i^^w^/ 



BURROUGHS, HOWELLS 



245 



his time between books and out-door life. He has published 
some fifteen volumes, whose titles suggest their con- 
tents : Wake-Robin, Whiter Sunshine, Birds and Poets, 
Locusts and Wild Honey, Signs and Seasons, Indoor Stud- 
ies, Walt Whitman. He worthily continues the work of 
Thoreau as a loving observer of nature. To read him is 
like taking a walk through the woods with a companion 
who finds something interesting at every step. His method 
may be inferred from a saying 
of his : " You must have the bird 
in your heart before you can find 
it in the bush." Besides his na- 
ture studies he has written sev- 
eral volumes of literary criticism 
that is as fresh and original as 
his out-door studies. He has also 
published a collection of the best 
poems on nature by English and 
American writers, entitled Songs 
of Nature. 

William Dean Ho wells (1837- 
) might be considered as be- 
longing to the West, since he was 
born in Ohio; but he came east as a young man and has 
remained there. He was born at Martin's Ferry, O., March 
1, 1837. His father was a newspaper editor, and in the print- 
ing office and the library at home the boy picked up most of 
his education. His early life he has pictured in the book 
A Boy's Town. He learned to set type, and served as a 
reporter on various newspapers. He early showed a love 
for literature, and being denied the opportunity for a regular 
education, he taught himself Spanish, Italian, and German 
and read eagerly in these languages. In i860 he wrote a 




246 RECENT WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE STATES 

campaign biography of Lincoln. With the money he 
received for this he made a trip to Boston to see Lowell, 
Emerson, and Longfellow. In 1861 he was appointed 
United States consul at Venice, where he remained four 
years. His impressions of this period are recorded in 
Venetian Life and Italian Journeys. 

Returning to America, he engaged in journalism in New 
York; then went to Boston as editor of the Atlantic Monthly -, 
a position which he held from 1871 to 1881, when he re- 
signed to devote himself more to his own writing. In 
1888 he removed to New York, where for a time he con- 
ducted the Editor's Shidy and later the Editor's Easy Chair 
in Harper's Magazine. 

He has been an industrious writer; the list of his works 
already numbers more than forty volumes. These cover 
a wide range, including poetry, essays, books of travel, 
criticism, short plays, and novels. His plays, or rather 
dramatic sketches, comedies in miniature, sparkle with 
humor and are written with a light, sure touch that is Mr. 
Howells's peculiar gift. They present amusing situations 
in everyday life, such as The Elevator, The Sleeping Car y 
The Mouse-Trap, and others. 

Mr. Howells's novels are his chief work, and probably 
the most important work in American fiction since Haw- 
thorne. His theory of the novel is set forth in the volume 
called Criticism and Fiction. He is a realist, a follower of 
the Russian novelist Tolstoi, and defines realism as " noth- 
ing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of 
material." His material is American life. It was his 
good fortune to be born in a typically American commu- 
nity, and then to spend four years abroad, giving that per- 
spective, that knowledge of other nations, which is necessary 
to understand one's own. Thus equipped, Mr. Howells 



HO WELLS, JAMES 247 

began writing stories of American life, or to speak 
more exactly, of that part of it which he had known in 
Ohio, New York, and New England. And even here he 
limited his field. He did not write of the leaders of 
society, of the multi-millionaires, or of the criminal classes ; 
these are the exceptions, and realism demands that an 
author shall treat of the usual, not the exceptional. So 
his characters are drawn from the great middle class 
in our social scale ; we see ourselves in his pages, pic- 
tured with a minuteness and accuracy that is almost 
photographic. His style, so exquisite in its choice of 
words, so delicately responsive in conveying shades of 
meaning, is a delight in itself. His descriptions — for 
example the passage in Their Wedding Journey describing 
the city on a hot day — have a wonderful power of 
conveying to the reader not only the scene but the sen- 
sations of such an experience. The underlying tone of 
his work is always wholesome. In this he presents a con- 
trast to the chief realistic writers of European countries. 
Their books, dealing with the seamy side of life, are often 
of doubtful moral value. Mr. Howells finds American life 
sound and true, and has so depicted it. Among his best 
novels are The Lady of the Aroostook, A Modern Instance, 
The Rise of Silas LapJiam, and A Hazard of New For- 
tunes. He ranks to-day as the dean of American men 
of letters. 

Henry James (1843 ) was born in New York City, 

but was educated abroad, and has lived abroad so long that 
one scarcely thinks of him as an American author. He 
has written essays of travel, literary criticism, an excellent 
life of Hawthorne, and a number of novels and short 
stories. Among his best novels are The Americans, The 
Europeans, The Portrait of a Lady, The Princess Casamis- 



248 RECENT WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE STATES 

sima, and the volumes of short stories entitled The Lesson 
of the Master and The Better Sort. 

A favorite subject of his is to portray Americans against 
a European background, the contrast in social and other 
standards affording a theme for his carefully finished 
studies of character. He is, like Howells, a realist, and 
even carries his theories farther than Mr. Howells. The 
novel, he holds, should exhibit life as it is. But life as it 
is does not exhibit well-constructed plots, so his stories 
have no plots. In life, too, relations between events are 
not so clearly defined as most novelists portray them. We 
cannot always trace an effect to its cause ; we do not see the 
results of many of our actions ; life is rather a tangled and 
perplexing thing. And Mr. James, trying to reproduce 
this, does not give us nicely rounded-out stories, with a 
proper ending, happy or unhappy as it may be, but rather 
portrays the shifting scene : people come and go ; we do 
not see the beginning ; we do not learn the end, except as 
we may fancy it for ourselves. Such stories naturally do 
not appeal to the average reader, but Mr. James's admirers 
find delight in the skill with which he shows the characters 
of his mimic world, and in the finished art of his style. 
Mr. James has recently undertaken a rather remarkable 
task, — the rewriting of all his novels, some of which were 
published thirty years ago, in the form in which he would 
write them to-day. 

Francis Marion Crawford (1854 ) was born in Italy, 

his father being a noted American sculptor. He came to 
New York as a child and was educated in this country. Of 
recent years he has returned to Italy, living in a villa near 
Sorrento. He is a very prolific writer ; since 1882, the date 
of his first book, he has written thirty novels, in addition to 
half a dozen books of history and description. His first 



CRAWFORD, STOCKTON, DAVIS 249 

novel, Mr. Isaacs, is a romantic story of the East, introduc- 
ing occultism, jewels, and picturesque descriptions. Zoro- 
aster is a tale of ancient Persia in the days of Darius and 
the prophet Daniel. Saracinesca, San? Iiario, and Don 
Orsino, three novels dealing with the fortunes of a noble 
Italian family of the present day, give a history of Rome 
from 1865 to 1887, the period of the struggle for su- 
premacy between the civil power and the Papacy. Mr. 
Crawford's books have usually a historical background. 
They have little distinction of style, but are always in- 
teresting, and in consequence he is one of the most popular 
of living novelists. 

Frank R. Stockton (1 834-1902) was born in Philadelphia 
and graduated from the high school there ; became a 
journalist, contributed many stories to St. Nicholas t and 
was an assistant editor of that magazine. After publishing 
a number of stories for children he wrote Rudder Grange, 
a series of amusing sketches that were widely popular. 
This was followed by a number of longer stories, including 
The Casting Away of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Alesliiiie, The 
Dnsantes, and The Sqicirrel Inn. His best short stories are 
in the two volumes called A Chosen Few and The Lady or 
the Tiger. The last named is one of the most famous short 
stories ever written. All of Stockton's work is humor- 
ous, and the humor is of a peculiar type. A favorite de- 
vice of his is to place people in some absurdly impossible 
situation, and then relate their actions and conversation in 
a matter-of-fact way. 

Richard Harding Davis (1864 ), like Stockton, was a 

son of Philadelphia. He began as a journalist in Philadel- 
phia and New York, and acted as war correspondent during 
the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese w r ars. He has 
published some forty volumes of travel, short stories, and 



250 RECENT WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE STATES 

novels, but nothing that he has written quite fulfills the 
promise of his early work. In two volumes of short stories, 
Van Bibber and Others and Gallegher, he sketched certain 
sides of city life, in particular the life of the clubs and scenes 
from a reporter's experience. The stories had the freshness 
of youth ; with their crisp style and sharp outlines they were 
like a series of little etchings of metropolitan life. 

To these writers of fiction must be added the names of 
two scholars : Professor McMaster and Dr. Furness. John 

Bach McMaster (1852 ), professor of history at the 

University of Pennsylvania, is the author of a History of the 
People of the United States, in seven large volumes, cover- 
ing the period from the Revolution to the Civil War. Mc- 
Master, like Macaulay, felt that the true history of a country 
is not a record of sovereigns and wars, but rather of the 
social, industrial, and intellectual progress of the people. In 
his history, therefore, he writes not only of presidential 
campaigns and foreign policies, but of the building of canals 
and railways, the passing of the ten-hour law, the growth 
of newspapers, the spread of popular education, the progress 
of agriculture and manufactures, — in a word, the story of 
the common people of America. 

Horace Howard Furness (1833 ) has edited the most 

complete edition of Shakespeare ever published. The Vari- 
orum Shakespeare, as it is called, devotes a large volume to 
each play, giving the text, with various readings, followed 
by a summary of all the notes of editors from the earliest 
to the present time, including extracts from the best criticism 
in English and other languages, and reprints of the sources 
of plays, where that is known. The volumes thus form a 
veritable cyclopedia of Shakespearian scholarship and criti- 
cism. 



READING FOR CHAPTER X 25 I 

READING FOR CHAPTER X 

Burroughs. — Winter Sunshine : The Apple ; River by : Eyebeams. 
Burroughs's essays are published in 15 vols. (Houghton). Selec- 
tions in Riverside Literature series. 

Howells. — One of the following novels : The Lady of the Aroostook, 
A Modern Insta?ice, A Hazard of New Fortunes, The Rise of Silas 
Lap ham (Houghton). 

James. — Short stories: The Lesson of the Master (Macmillan), 
The Better Sort (Scribner). 

Novels, one of these : The Europeans, The Portrait of a Lady 
(Houghton) . 

Crawford. — One of the following: Mr. Isaacs, Zoroaster, Saracin- 
esca, Don Orsino, Sanf Ilario (Macmillan) . 

Stockton. — The Lady or the Tiger, A Chosen Few. Rudder Grange 
(Scribner). 

For fuller discussion of the writers in this chapter, see H. C. Vedder's 
American Writers of To-Day (Silver. Burdett), J. W. Abernethy's 
Anierican Literattire (Maynard. Merrill & Co.), A. G. Newcomer's 
American Literature (Scott, Foresman). 



CHAPTER XI 

THE RISE OF WESTERN LITERATURE 

Bret Harte Edward Eggleston 

S. L. Clemens Eugene Field 

James Whitcomb Riley 

That section of our country which lies between the 
Ohio River and the Pacific Ocean has been so recently de- 
veloped that one would scarcely expect to find much liter- 
ature. When we remember that New England and the 
South, from the time of their settlement to the Revolution, 
— a period of one hundred and fifty years, — produced not 
a single book that lives as literature, it would not be 
strange if the West, in fifty years, should have little to 
show. Yet the development of the West has been far 
more rapid in every respect than that of the colonies, and 
although its literature has but began, it contains much of 
promise and at least two distinguished names : Bret Harte 
and Mark Twain. 

The very beginning of Western literature was in the 
sixties, when a group of humorists, trained chiefly in news- 
paper work, became widely popular. One of the chief of 
these was Charles Farrar Browne (i 834-1 867), who wrote 
under the name of " Artemus Ward." He was a reporter 
in Cleveland ; he had gone farther west, visiting Utah, 
and prepared a humorous lecture on The Mormons. This 
proved very successful in England as well as in America ; 

252 



SHAW, BRET HARTE 



253 



it is to be found in most collections of American humor. 
His drolleries still provoke laughter. 

Henry W. Shaw (1818-1885), better known as "Josh 
Billings," published a series of comic almanacs, — Farmer s 
Allminax, he called them, — in which the odd spelling and 
the humor served to give point to shrewd common sense. 
Some of his sayings are yet quoted, as : 

" Style iz everything for a sinner, and a leetle of it won't hurt a saint." 
" Thare iz sum pholks in this world who spend their whole lives 
a-hunting after righteousness, and kant find enny time tew praktiss it." 
" To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way your- 
self once in a while.' 1 

But the first Western writer who expressed the spirit of 
the West was Bret Harte. Francis Bret Harte (1 839-1 902) 
was born at Albany, N.Y., 
and went West at sixteen. In 
California he was at various 
times miner, school teacher, 
printer, and journalist. In 1868 
he was chosen editor of The 
Overland Monthly, a magazine 
just established, and to it he 
contributed many of his best 
stories. In 1878 he went to 
Germany as United States Con- 
sul at Crefeld, adding another 
name to the list of literary men 
whom our country has rewarded 
with diplomatic positions. His 
later years were spent in Lon- 
don ; as an author he was even more popular in England 
than in the United States. 

His writings number forty volumes, but his reputation 




254 



THE RISE OF WESTERN LITERATURE 



rests on two or three of these. His earliest book, a collec- 
tion of short stories called The Luck of Roaring Camp and 
Other Tales, shows him at his best. The scene is the 
Western mining camp; the characters are the rough, simple 
miners ; the gambler, polished and reckless ; the wrecks 
of humanity, men and women, who drifted with the tide 
that carried thousands across the plains in search of gold. 
This life Harte had seen at an age when impressions are 
strongest ; he has pictured it vividly, with its pathos, its 
unconscious humor, its heroism, often unconscious too. 
By his descriptions of scenery and people, by suggestion, 
by the use of dialect, he gives one the very atmosphere of 
the place. He is thus the pioneer writer of the short story 
of local color, the field in which Cable and Miss Murfree 
in the South, Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary E. Wilkins in 

New England, have since done 
their notable work. Besides his 
short stories, Harte has written 
a volume of poems. The best of 
these, like his stories, deal with 
Western life. His Plain Lan- 
guage from Truthful James, also 
known as The Heathen Chinee, is 
a good example of his humorous 
verse. 

Samuel L. Clemens (1835- 

), whom everybody knows as 

Mark Twain, is a Westerner by 
right of birth. He was born at 
Florida, Mo., Nov. 30, 1835. He 
picked up most of his education 
in a printing office. He was by turns a wandering printer, 
a Mississippi River pilot, a miner in Nevada, a journalist in 




CLEMENS, EGGLESTON 255 

San Francisco, and a lecturer everywhere. A trip to Europe 
with a party of tourists resulted in Innocents Abroad, the 
book which first made him widely known. In Life on the 
Mississippi he tells many of the incidents of his own roving 
life. A succession of other books, all widely popular, had 
made him comfortably well-to-do. In the late eighties, how- 
ever, he became a member of a publishing house which 
failed disastrously, leaving debts of upwards of a hundred 
thousand dollars. Mark Twain set out to pay these debts, 
and to do so made a lecture tour around the world. With 
this and his later books he not only paid the entire debt of 
the firm, but gained a comfortable income. In 1907 he 
visited England to receive the degree of Doctor of Letters 
from Oxford University, an honor which has seldom been 
conferred on an American. 

Mark Twain is undeniably one of our chief American 
humorists. This quality pervades all his work ; it is seen 
perhaps at its best in short sketches like The Jumping Frog 
or New England Weather. But his claim to be remem- 
bered rests upon more than his humor. In two long novels, 
Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn, he has done work 
which gives him a place with our leading writers of fiction. 
These books do for the Middle West what Cooper's novels 
did for the frontier : they give us a picture of a life that is 
gone forever, and a picture so vivid, so true, that it is 
history. In these books Twain shows a power to create 
character in which he is second to none of our novelists. 
Tom Sawyer is as real a boy as any of the thousands of 
boys who have delighted in his adventures. 

Edward Eggleston (183 7-1 902) has done for early life in 
Indiana what Mark Twain did for life on the Mississippi. 
He was born at Vevay, Ind., and at nineteen became a 
circuit rider, or traveling Methodist preacher. After ten 



256 THE RISE OF WESTERN LITERATURE 

years of this he came East to accept an editorial position, 
serving successively on The Sunday-School Teacher, The 
Independent, and Hearth and Home, and acting as pastor of 
an independent church in Brooklyn. 

The Hoosier Schoolmaster, his first and most popular 
book, appeared in 1871 as a serial in Hearth and Home, 
and won him a reputation as a novelist. His life as a 
circuit rider had given him an intimate knowledge of the 
crude life of the early settlers in the Middle West ; he drew 
upon this knowledge and gave us a book full of human 
interest, racy with humor, and graphic in its picture of 
pioneer civilization. None of his later novels, such as The 
Circuit Rider, Roxy, and The Hoosier School-Boy, met with 
quite the success of his first book. In later years Eggleston 
turned from fiction to history, and in The Transit of Civili- 
zation and other works made interesting and valuable 
studies of the life of the people in early Colonial times. 

Perhaps this chapter is the best place to mention the 
work of a man whom we do not usually think of as a man 
of letters, Ulysses S. Grant (1 822-1885). A native of 
Ohio, and a resident of St. Louis, he belongs to the West. 
His Personal Memoirs is a book which by virtue of its 
strong, direct, simple style in dealing with great events has 
been placed by no less a critic than W. D. Howells among 
the great books in our literature. 

The writers mentioned thus far have been writers of 
prose. In poetry the West has not been behind the East 
in the amount if not in the quality of the work produced. 
One of the earliest writers was John Hay (1 838-1906), a 
native of Indiana, whose Pike County Ballads were among 
the first attempts to use Western dialect in verse. Mr. Hay 
is also the author of The Breadwinners, a powerful novel 
dealing with social and labor questions in so bold a way 



MILLER, FIELD 



257 



that it was published anonymously and its authorship 
never definitely known until after Mr. Hay's death. Hay 
is also known as the co-author with John G. Nicolay of a 
life of Lincoln, and served with distinction as Secretary of 
State under Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt. 

Joaquin Miller (1841 ) was born in Indiana and 

went to Oregon as a boy. His early life in mining camps 
and on ranches in California and Oregon furnished material 
for several volumes of poems, Songs of the Sierras, Songs of 
the Sunlands, Songs of the Desert, and others, in which the 
free life, the tropical scenery, and the great open spaces of 
the Southwest are celebrated in swinging, musical, if some- 
what careless verse. But among the many Western writers 
of verse two stand out above the 
rest : Eugene Field and James 
Whitcomb Riley. 

Eugene Field (1 850-1 895) was 
born in St. Louis, Sept. 3, 1850. 
He was educated in the East, but 
went West again to become a 
journalist. He worked on vari- 
ous papers in St. Louis, Kansas 
City, and Denver, and in 1883 
went to Chicago to join the staff 
of the Daily News, a position he 
held until his death. He had 
a column in the paper called 
Sharps and Flats, where he 
wrote what he pleased. Sometimes it was a witty 
paragraph at the expense of Chicago's society leaders ; 
sometimes it was a rollicking bit of verse ; sometimes 
a tender story. The best of this work he gathered up 
into half a dozen volumes of prose and verse. His first 




258 



THE RISE OF WESTERN LITERATURE 



book of poems, A Little Book of Western Verse, was wel- 
comed with delight for its freshness and its humor. In 
subsequent volumes, A Second Book of Verse, Love Songs of 
Childhood, and others, Field won wider and wider recognition. 
His child poems, contained in the Love Songs and With 
Trumpet a7id Drum, are perhaps his finest work. The 
simplicity and charm of such poems as Little Boy Blue, 
Wynken, Blynken and Nod, and The Rockaby Lady of 
Hushaby Street fairly entitle him to be crowned the poet 
laureate of childhood. In A Little Book of Profitable Tales 

he has collected some of his best 
sketches and short stories, which 
show his humor and pathos in 
equal degree. 

James Whitcomb Riley (1852- 

) was born at Greenfield, 

Ind., and has spent nearly all his 
life in his native state. In his 
youth he was by turns traveling 
sign painter, actor, and journalist. 
While a reporter on the India- 
napolis Journal he wrote for that 
paper some poems in Hoosier 
dialect, which were published 
over the signature of " Ben- 
jamin F. Johnson, of Boone." In 1883 these poems were 
gathered into a slender volume called The Old Swimmin 
Hole, and ' Leven More Poems. The cordial reception 
given to this book decided Riley's career. He has pub- 
lished twelve volumes of poetry, of which Poems Here at 
Home, Neighborly Poems, and Old-Fashioned Roses are 
among the best. For some years he gave readings from 
his poems, with great success ; but he disliked the work, 




cj ***£ Wi^^^T^r^ 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 259 

and prefers to live quietly in his " home town," writing 
when he is in the mood for it. 

Riley is known, in America and England, as a dialect 
poet. He has done for the Hoosier dialect what Lowell 
did in the Biglow Papers for the Yankee dialect : lifted 
it into literature. His country boyhood, his roving life, 
made him know the plain people ; he has shared their 
pleasures, felt their griefs, read their few books, and read 
more often in the Book of Nature. He writes from their 
standpoint, puts their feelings into his poetry, and so uses 
their speech as fittest. With him, then, dialect is not an 
artificial device of a writer striving for a new literary effect, 
but a sincere and natural medium of expression. With 
it he can call up old memories of boyhood, mingled with 
deeper thoughts that touch the springs of tears; he can 
make us laugh at his quaint sayings; he can picture the 
old orchard with clover blooms underneath, bluejays in the 
branches, and white clouds sailing overhead. His Knee- 
Deep in June is as genuine in its feeling and as musical as 
Lowell's "What is so rare as a day in June" in The Vision 
of Sir Laitnfal. Again, Riley, like Field, is one of child- 
hood's favorite poets. The Raggedy Man, Little Orphant 
Annie, The Runaway Boy, are poems to which the heart of 
childhood makes instant answer. 

In conclusion, a word may be added as to the general 
characteristics of the literature of this period, not only in the 
West but the country over. The chief development has 
been in fiction, and of this fiction much has been in the form 
of the short story. One reason for this is in the multiplica- 
tion of magazines. The past twenty years has seen their 
number more than doubled, and as each issue commonly 
contains several short stories, a ready market is afforded for 



260 THE RISE OF WESTERN LITERATURE 

some hundreds of these each year. These short stories 
commonly take the form of studies of local color, and in 
this way the dialect, the manners, and the characteristics 
of various parts of our country have been, so to speak, pho- 
tographed, section by section, so that a foreigner, by put- 
ting together the work of a number of writers, might obtain 
a tolerably correct idea of our whole country. 

As in prose the favorite form is the short story, so in 
poetry it is the lyric. Of dramatic poetry little of conse- 
quence has been produced, with the exception of the work of 

William Vaughn Moody (1869 ), whose Masque of 

Judgment is one of the most significant of recent volumes of 
verse. Perhaps it is the hurry, hurry of restless American 
life that leaves us no time for anything but short stories 
and short poems. It would be a pity if this were true, for 
the greatest writers in English and American literature 
have found that the short story and the lyric, while admirable 
in themselves, offer too limited a field for sustained, serious 
literary achievement. 

And finally, as to the authors themselves, while there 
are more people writing and writing well than ever 
before, there seem to be few or no great authors. Per- 
haps we are too close to them to realize their signifi- 
cance. When Lowell and Hawthorne were writing their 
books, few people thought of them as among the greatest 
authors in our literature. So it may be that in another 
generation certain authors of to-day — it would be rash 
to mention names — will be placed among the chief 
writers in American literature. 



READING FOR CHAPTER XI 26 1 



READING FOR CHAPTER XI 

Harte. — Poems : John Burns of Gettysburg, Caldwell of Springfield, 
Ramon, Dow^s Flat, Plain Language from Truthful James, The Society 
up07i the Stanislaus, Her Letter, Grizzly, Dickens i7i Ca7tip. 

Prose : The Luck of Roarifig Camp. 

Bret Harte's complete works are published in 19 vols. (Houghton). 
Selections from the poems in Stedman, Warner, and Library of Ameri- 
can Literature. x 

Clemens. — One of the following: Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Fimi, 
Life on the Mississippi (Harper). 

Eggleston. — The Hoosier Schoolmaster (Judd). 

Field. — Poems: A Little Book of Western Verse, With Tnmipet 
and Drum. 

Prose : A Little Book of Profitable Tales. 

Field's complete works are published in 12 vols. (Scribner). Selec- 
tions from his poems in Stedman, Library of America7i Literature, and 
Warner. 

Riley. — Neighbo7'ly Poe7ns (Bobbs, Merrill), Poe77ts Here at Ho7ne 
(Century) . 

Riley's collected works in prose and verse are published in 12 vols. 
(Scribner) . Brief selections in Stedman and Library of A7nerica?i 
Literature. 

For fuller discussion of the writers in this chapter see the references 
at the close of Chap. X. 

1 For publisher and price of books referred to, see p. 278. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 



Benjamin Franklin 

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the 
stuff life is made of. 

Poor Richard's Almanac. 

If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some ; 
for lie that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing. 

Poor Richard" 1 s Almanac. 

There never was a good war or a bad peace. 

Letters. 

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. 

Poor Richard's Almanac. 

If you would have your business done, go ; if not, send. 

Poor Richard's Ahnanac. 

He that lives on hope will die fasting. 

Poor Richard's Almanac. 

A man is often more generous when he has but little money than 

when he has plenty, perhaps through fear of being thought to have but 

little. 

Autobiography . 

Fitz-Greene Halleck 

Burns 

There have been loftier themes than his, 
And longer scrolls, and louder lyres, 

And lays lit up with Poesy's 
Purer and holier fires ; 
262 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 263 

Yet read the names that know not death ; 

Few nobler ones than Burns are there ; 
And few have won a greener wreath 

Than that which binds his hair. 

His is that language of the heart, 

In which the answering heart would speak, — 
Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, 

Or the smile light the cheek ; 

And his that music, to whose tone 

The common pulse of man keeps time, 
In cot or castle's mirth or mourn, 

In cold or sunny clime. 

Edward C. Pinckney 

I fill this cup to one made up 

Of loveliness alone, 
A woman, of her gentle sex 

The seeming paragon ; 
To whom the better elements 

And kindly stars have given 
A form so fair, that, like the air, 

? Tis less of earth than heaven. 

A Health. 

William Cullen Bryant 

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again, 

The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But error, wounded, writhes with pain 

And dies among his worshipers. 

The Battlefield. 

Thou who wouldst wear the name 

Of poet 'mid thy brethren of mankind, 
And clothe in words of flame 

Thoughts that shall live within the general mind! 
Deem not the framing of a deathless lay 
The pastime of a drowsy summer day. 

The Poet. 



264 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

The hills, 
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales, 
Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
The venerable woods, — rivers that move 
In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, 
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 
Are but the solemn decorations all 
Of the great tomb of man. 



Thanatopsis. 



Ralph Waldo Emerson 



So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 

So near is God to man, 
When Duty whispers low, Thou must, 

The youth replies, I can! 

Voluntaries. 

Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company 
of the wisest and wittiest men picked out of all civilized countries, in a 
thousand years, have set in best order the results of their learning and 
wisdom. 

Society and Solitude : Books. 

Every spirit makes its house, but afterwards the house confines the 

spirit. 

Conduct of Life : Fate. 

A day for toil, an hour for sport. 
But for a friend a life's too short. 

Friendship. 

The pleasure of life is according to the man that lives it, and not 
according to the work or the place. 

Conduct of Life : Fate. 

Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill ? 
Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill. 

Suum Cuique. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 265 

If a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that 
come from those heavenly worlds will separate between him and what 
he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent 
with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual 
presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they 
are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how 
would men believe and adore ; and preserve for many generations the 
remembrance of the City of God which had been shown! But every 
night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with 
their admonishing smile. 

Nature. 

We arrive at virtue by taking its direction instead of imposing ours. 

Perpetual Forces. 

To-day is a King in disguise. To-day always looks mean to the 
thoughtless, in the face of an uniform experience, that all good and 
great and happy actions are made up precisely of these blank to-days. 
Let us not be so deceived. Let us unmask the King as he passes. 

Lecture on the Times. 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 

Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 
Here once the embattled farmers stood 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

Concord Hymn . 
To be great is to be misunderstood. 

Essays : Self-Reliance. 

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men round to 
his opinion twenty years later. 

Conduct of Life : Culture. 



Henry W. Longfellow 

Upward steals the life of man 
As the sunshine from the wall ; 
From the wall into the sky, 
From the roof along the spire, — 
Ah, the souls of those that die 
Are but sunbeams lifted higher. 

The Golden Legend* 



266 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

Not in the clamour of the crowded street, 

Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, 
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat. 

The Poets. 

No one is so accursed by fate, 
No one so utterly desolate, 

But some heart, though unknown, 

Responds unto his own. 

Endymion. 

Look not mournfully into the Past ; it comes not back again. 
Wisely improve the Present ; it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy 
Future without fear and with a manly heart. 

Hyperioii. 

The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. 

Hyperion. 

There is no death ! What seems so is transition ; 

This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life Elysian 

Whose portal we call Death. Resignation. 

Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven 
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels. 

Evangeline. 

When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music. 

Evangeline. 

The heights by great men reached and kept 

Were not attained by sudden flight, 
But they while their companions slept 

Were toiling upwards in the night. 

The Ladder of St. Augustine. 

Fame is the fragrance of heroic deeds. 

The Bell of Atri. 

Oh, fear not in a world like this, 

And thou shalt know ere long, — 
Know how sublime a thing it is 

To suffer and grow strong. 

The Light of Stars. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 267 



John G. Whittier 

For still in mutual sufferance lies 

The secret of true living ; 
Love scarce is love, that never knows 

The sweetness of forgiving. 

Atnong the Hills. 

I pray the prayer of Plato old : 

God make thee beautiful within, 
And let thine eyes the good behold 

In everything save sin ! 

My Namesake. 

Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies 
Deeply buried from human eyes ; 

And, in the hereafter, angels may 
Roll the stone from its grave away. 

Maud Midler. 



James Russell Lowell 

In life's small things be resolute and great 

To keep thy muscle trained : know'st thou when Fate 

Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee, 

" I find thee worthy ; do this thing for me? " Sayings. 

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side ; 
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, 
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right. 
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. 

The Present Crisis. 

Careless seems the great Avenger ; history's pages but record 
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word ; 
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, — 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown, 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. 

The Present Crisis. 



268 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

One day, with life and heart, 
Is more than time enough to find a world. 

Columbus. 
Ez fer war, I call it murder, — 

There you hev it, plain an' flat ; 
I don't want to go no furder 

Than my Testyment fer that ; 
God hez sed so, plump an 1 fairly, 

It's ez long ez it is broad, 
An 1 youVe gut to git up airly 
Ef you want to take in God. 

Biglow Papers : A Letter. 

It is useless to argue with the inevitable. The only argument with 

an east wind is to put on an overcoat. 

Democracy, 

Life is a leaf of paper white 
Whereon each one of us may write 
His word or two, and then comes night. 
Greatly begin ! though thou have time 
But for a line, be that sublime, — 
Not failure, but low aim, is crime. 

For an Autograph. 

A college training is an excellent thing ; but after all the better part 
of every man's education is that which he gives himself. 

Essays : Books and Libraries. 

Be noble! and the nobleness that lies 
In other men, sleeping but never dead, 
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own. 

Sonnets. 

Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose 
power a man is. 

Literary Essays: Rousseau. 

Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes 
hardest to bear are those which never come. 

Democracy. 

Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the 
world weigh less than a single lovely action. 

Liter aty Essays : Rousseau.. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 269 

And what is so rare as a day in June? 

Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, 
And over it softly her warm ear lays ; 
Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
Every clod feels a stir of might. 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers. 
And, groping blindly above it for light. 
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; 
The flush of life may well be seen 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys ; 
The cow T slip startles in meadows green, 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 
And there's never a leaf or a blade too mean 
To be some happy creature's palace. 

The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

No man is born into the world whose work 
Is not born with him. There is always work, 
And tools to work withal, for those who will ; 
And blessed are the horny hands of toil. 

A Glance behind the Curtain. 

To say why gals acts so or so, 

Or don't, *ould be presumin' ; 
Mebby to mean yes an' say no 

Comes nateral to women. 

The CourtiiC. 



John G. Saxe 

In battle or business, whatever the game. 

In law or in love it is ever the same, 

In the struggle for power or the scramble for pelf. 

Let this be your motto : Rely on yourself : 

And whether the prize be a ribbon or throne, 

The victor is he who can go it alone. 



270 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 

But now he walks the streets, 
And he looks at all he meets 

Sad and wan, 
And he shakes his feeble head, 
That it seems as if he said, 

"They are gone." 

The mossy marbles rest 
On the lips that he has prest 

In their bloom ; 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tomb. 

The Last Leaf. 

Sin has many tools, but a lie is a handle that fits them all. 

Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. 

I would have a woman as true as death. At the first real lie which 
works from the heart outward, she should be tenderly chloroformed 
into a better world, where she can have an angel for a governess. 

Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. 

John Burroughs 

Waiting 

Serene, I fold my hands and wait, 

Nor care for wind, or tide, or sea ; 
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, 
For lo ! my own shall come to me. 

I stay my haste, I make delays, 

For what avails this eager pace ? 
I stand amid the eternal ways 

And what is mine shall know my face. 

Asleep, awake, by night or day, 

The friends I seek are seeking me ; 
No wind can drive my bark astray 

Nor change the tide of destiny. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 27 1 

Nathaniel Hawthorne 

No fountain is so small but that Heaven may be imaged in its 
bosom. 

American Note Books. 

Moonlight is sculpture ; sunlight is painting. 

American Note Books. 

Life is made up of marble and mud. 

The House of the Seven Gables. 

Bayard Taylor 

From the Desert I come to thee 

On a stallion shod with fire ; 
And the winds are left behind 

In the speed of my desire. 
Under thy window I stand. 

And the midnight hears my cry : 
I love thee, I love but thee, 
With a love that shall not die 
Till the sun grows cold, 
And the stars are old, 

And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold I 

Bedouin Song. 

Walt Whitman 

Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and 

liquid, 
You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky. 

A Song of the /tolling Earth. 

Ah, little recks the laborer 

How near his work is holding him to God. 

Song of the Exposition. 

That shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro seeking a livelihood, 

chattering, chaffering. 
How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits. 
How often I question and doubt whether that is really me. 

That Shadow My Likeness. 



272 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

Josh Billings (Henry W. Shaw) 

Most people are like an egg, too phull of themselves to hold enny- 
thing else. 

Farmer's Allminax. 

Thare iz menny a slip between a cup and a lip, but not haf az menny 
az thare ought to be. 

Farmers Allminax. 

I don't never hev enny trubble in regulating mi own condukt, but 
to keep other pholks straight is what bothers me. 

Farmer's Allminax. 

It iz better not to kno so mutch than to kno so menny things that 
ain't so. 

Fanner's Allminax. 

Charles Dudley Warner 

Lettuce is like conversation : it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling 
you scarcely notice the bitter in it. Like most talkers, it is, however, 
apt to run rapidly to seed. 

My Summer in a Garden. 

Our lives are largely made up of the things we do not have. 

A Little Journey in the World. 



Henry Timrod 

Sleep sweetly in your humble graves, 

Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause ; 
Though yet no marble column craves 

The pilgrim here to pause. 

In seeds of laurel in the earth 

The blossom of your fame is blown, 

And somewhere, waiting for its birth, 
The shaft is in the stone ! 

At Magnolia Cemetery. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 273 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich 

God fashioned man from out the common earth, 
But not from earth the woman : so does she, 
Even when fallen, ever bear with her 
Some sign of Heaven, some mystic starry light. 

Judith . 

And they called her cold. God knows. . . . Underneath the winter 

snows 
The invisible hearts of flowers grow ripe for blossoming. 
And the lives that look so cold, if their secrets could be told, 
Would seem cast in gentler mold, would seem full of love and spring. 

The Lady of Castelnoire. 

When to soft Sleep we give ourselves away, 
And in a dream as in a fairy bark 
Drift on and on through the enchanted dark 
To purple daybreak. — little thought we pay 
To that sweet bitter world we know by day. 

Sleep. 

Cynicism is a small brass field-piece that eventually breaks and kills 
the cannoneer. 

Marjorie Daw. 

Henry D. Thoreau 

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, 
or perchance a palace or temple on the earth, and at length the middle- 
aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them. 

Journals. 

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than to be 
crowded on a velvet cushion. 

Walden. 
Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. 

Walden. 

Who is most dead, — a hero by whose monument you stand, or 
his descendants of whom you have never heard? 

Talks with R. IV. Emerson. 



274 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

Theodore O'Hara 

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat 

The soldier's last tattoo ; 
No more on Life's parade shall meet 

That brave and fallen few. 
On Fame's eternal camping-ground 

Their silent tents are spread, 
And Glory guards, with solemn round, 

The bivouac of the dead. 

The Bivouac of the Dead. 

Edward Rowland Sill 1 

The ill-timed truth we might have kept — 

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung ! 
The word we had not sense to say — 
Who knows how grandly it had rung ! 

The FooVs Prayer. 

Fret not that the day is gone, 

And thy task is still undone. 

'Twas not thine, it seems, at all : 

Near to thee it chanced to fall, 

Close enough to stir thy brain, 

And to vex thy heart in vain. 

Somewhere, in a nook forlorn, 

Yesterday a babe was born : 

He shall do thy waiting task ; 

All thy questions he shall ask, 

And the answers will be given 

Whispered lightly out of heaven. . . . 

'Tis enough of joy for thee 

His high service to foresee. Service. 

Do not correspond with more people than you correspond to. 

Prose Writings. 

George William Curtis 

For those of us whom Nature means to keep at home, she provides 
entertainment. One man goes four thousand miles to see Italy, and 
1 From Poems by E. R. Sill, copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 275 

does not see it : he is so short-sighted. Another is so far-sighted that 
he stays in his room and sees more than Italy. Prue and I 

If gilt were only gold, or sugar candy common sense, what a fine 
thing our society would be ! Qur ^ SoJ . idy 

It's a good world, if you don't rub it the wrong way. 

Potiphar Papers. 

Richard Henry Stoddard 
The Sky. 1 

The sky is a drinking cup 

That was overturned of old, 
And it pours in the eyes of men 

Its wine of airy gold. 

We drink that wine all day, 
Till the last drop is drained up, 

And are lighted off to bed 
By the jewels in the cup. 

Joaquin Miller 
Peter Cooper 

I reckon him greater than any man 

That ever drew sword in war ; 
I reckon him nobler than King or Khan. 

Braver and better by far. 

And wisest he in this whole wide land 

Of hoarding till bent and gray ; 
For all you can hold in your cold dead hand 

Is what you have given away. 

Mark Twain (S. L. Clemens) 

The difference between the almost right word and the right word 
is really a large matter — 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug 
and the lightning. AH of Authorship , 

1 From Poetical Writings of Richard Henry Stoddard, copyright, 1880, by 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 



276 QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 

To be good is noble, but to show others how to be good is noble 
and no trouble. 

Following the Equator. 



William Dean Howells 

As I understand it, we are all dreamers. If we like a man's dream, 
we call him a prophet ; if we don't like his dream, we call him a crank. 

The World of Chance. 

Many a woman who would be ready to die for her husband makes 
him wretched because she won't live for him. 

A Modem Instance. 

Everybody does the things that you think no one else does. 

The Lady of the Aroostook. 

The character of no man is fixed until it has been tried by that of 
the woman he loves. 

A Woman's Reason. 



Emily Dickinson 1 

The pedigree of honey 

Does not concern the bee ; 
A clover, any time, to him 

Is aristocracy. 

Life 

Our share of night to bear, 
Our share of morning, 
Our blank in bliss to fill, 
Our blank in scorning. 

Here a star, and there a star, 
Some lose their way. 
Here a mist, and there a mist, 
Afterwards — day ! 

1 From Poems of Emily Dickinson, copyright, Little, Brown, & Co., by 
permission. 



QUOTATIONS FOR MEMORIZING 277 

James Whitcomb Riley 1 

Away. 

I cannot say, and I will not say 
That he is dead. — He is just away. 

With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand, 
He has wandered into an unknown land, 

And left us dreaming how very fair 

It needs must be, since he lingers there. 

It ain't no use to grumble and complain ; 

It's jest as cheap an' easy to rejoice : 
When God sorts out the weather, and sends rain, 

W'y, rain's my choice. 



Wet Weather Talk. 



Plague! ef they ain't sompin' in 

Work 'at kindb' goes agin' 
My convictions! 'long about 

Here in June especially! 

Under some old apple tree, 

Jest a-restin' through and through, 
I could git along without 

Nothin' else at all to do, 

Only jes' a-wishin' you 



And June was eternity 



Knee-Deep in June. 



Jest do your best, and praise er blame 
That follers that, counts jest the same. 

My Philosofy. 

1 From Poems of James Whitcomb Riley, copyrighted, by permission. 



LIST OF BOOKS REFERRED TO 

Cabi7iet edition. Well-printed volumes, with frontispiece portraits, 
small but clear type, including the chief American poets. Each complete 
in i vol., $i. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 

Cambridge edition, English and American Poets. Large volumes, 
well printed, each containing the complete works of a poet, with por- 
trait, biographical sketch, and brief notes. A desirable library edition. 
20 vols., $2 per volume. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 

Everyman's Library. A series of 300 vols., including standard Eng- 
lish and American works in all departments of literature. One of the 
best cheap series. 40 cents per volume. E. P. Dutton & Co., N.Y. 

Handy Volume Classics. Includes about two hundred titles of 
standard works, small type but clear. 35 cents per volume. T. Y. 
Crowell & Co., N.Y. 

Library of A7nerican Literature, edited by E. C. Stedman and Ellen 
M. Hutchinson. Gives extracts from all authors, with portraits. 11 vols. 
C. L. Webster, N.Y. 

Page, C. H., Chief American Poets. Contains extended selections 
from Bryant, Poe, Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, 
Whitman, and Lanier ; also biographical sketches and valuable lists of 
references to critical articles. The best guide for the above authors. 
$1.75. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 

Stedman, E. C, An American Anthology. A collection, in a single 
large volume, of some of the best work from all American poets. It 
includes many more writers than Page's work above, but usually gives 
only a few pages to an author. A valuable collection, $3. Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co., Boston. 

Trent, W. P., and Wells, B. W., Colonial Prose and Poetry. A 
series of extracts from the authors, lesser and greater, of the period ; 
interesting and valuable for reference. 3 vols., set, $2.25. T. Y. 
Crowell & Co., N.Y. 

Warner, C. D., Library of the WorWs Best Literature. Extracts 
from English and American authors, with brief biography and criticism 
of each. Many portraits. 30 vols. R. S. Peale and J. A. Hill, N.Y. 

278 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Absalom and Achitophel (Dryden) . 43 

Adam Bede (Eliot) Ill 

Adams, Samuel 151 

Adams and Jefferson (Webster) . . 194 

Addison, Joseph 48 

reading list 55 

quoted 127 

Adonais (Keats) 79, 80 

Alchemist, The (Jonson) 31 

Alcott, Louisa M 202 

Aldeich, Thomas Bailey 230 

reading list 235 

quoted 273 

Alexander's Feast (Dryden) .... 43 

Alfred tue Great 5 

Alhambra. The (Irving) . . . 158, 159 

Allen, James Lane 241 

reading list 243 

All Sorts and Conditions of Men 

(Besant) 90 

American, The (James) 247 

American Anthology (Stedman) . . 230 

American Flag (Drake) 160 

American Lands and Letters (Mitch- 
ell) 183 

American Nation, The (Hart) . . . 233 
American Revolution, The (Fiske) . 233 
American Scholar, The (Emerson) . 108 
Among My Books (Lowell) .... 184 
Ancient Laic, The (Glasgow) . . .243 
Ancient Mariner, The (Coleridge) 71, 72 

Anglo-Saxon language 6 

nation 1, 3 

Annabel Lee (Poe) 215 

Annual Register, The (Burke) ... 59 

Anti-slavery orators 192 

Arnold, Matthew, poetry .... 98 

prose 104 

reading 117 

quoted 137 

Asolando (Browning) ...... 95 

As We Go (Warner) 232 

As We Were Saying (Warner) . . . 232 
As You Like Lt (Shakespeare) . , . 30 



PAGE 

Atlantic Monthly 181 

Austen, Jane 83 

Autobiography (Franklin) . . 152, 154 
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, The 

(Holmes) 186, 1S7 

Back-Log Studies (Warner) .... 232 

Bacon, Francis 31 

reading list 33 

quoted 122 

Ballad of Babie Bell (Aldrich) . . . 230 
Ballads, English and Scottish .... 15 

reading list 20 

Bancroft, George 202 

Barbara Frietchie (Whittier) . . . 177 
Barchesler Towers (Trollope) . . . 113 
Barefoot Boy, The (Whittier) . . .179 
Barrack-Boom Ballads (Kipling) . . 115 
Battle Ground, The (Glasgow) ... 243 
Battle of Blenheim (Southey) ... 74 
Battle of the Baltic (Campbell) . . . 82 

Beauchampe (Simms) 210 

Becket (Tennyson) 92 

Bede, The Venerable 4, 5 

Bedouin Love Song (Taylor) . . .220 
Beginning of English literature ... 1 

Being a Boy (Warner) 232 

Bells, The (Poe) .215 

Beowulf 1, 6 

reading 7 

Better Sort, The (James) 248 

Biglow Papers, The (Lowell) . . . 

181, 182, 184 

Bill and Joe (Holmes) 1S6 

Billings, Josh. See Shaw. Henry W. 253 
Biographic, Literaria (Coleridge) . 72 
Birds and Poets (Burroughs) . . . 245 

Black Cat, The (Poe) 213 

Blake, William 67 

reading list 87 

quoted 130 

Blank verse, first used in English . . 22 
Blithedale Romance (Hawthorne) 19S, 199 
Bos well, James 57 



279 



280 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Boys, The (Holmes) 186 

Boys' King Arthur (Lanier) . . . 238 

Boys' Percy (Lanier) 239 

Boy's Town, A (Howells) 245 

Breadwinners, The (Hay) .... 256 
Break, break, break (Tennyson) . . 91 
Bride of Lammermoor, The (Scott) 82 

Bronte, Charlotte 106 

Browne, Charles Farrar .... 252 
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett . . 98 

reading list 116 

quoted 137 

Browning, Bobert 94 

reading list 116 

quoted 138 

Bryant, William Cullen .... 163 

reading list 166 

quoted 263 

Buds and. Bird-Voices (Hawthorne) 199 
Builders, The (Longfellow), quoted 175 

Bunyan, John 38 

reading list 44 

Burke, Edmund 59 

reading list 65 

Burns, Robert 67 

reading list 87 

quoted 130 

Burns (Halleck), quoted 160 

Burroughs, John 244 

reading list 251 

quoted 270 

Butler, Samuel 42 

Byron, George Gordon 77 

reading list 87 

quoted 134 

Byron, Life of (Moore) 81 

Cable, George W 240 

reading list 243 

Cedmon 3 

reading list 7 

California and Oregon Trail, The 

(Parkman) 205 

Campbell, Thomas 81 

Canterbury Tales (Chaucer) . . .10, 12 

Cape Cod (Thoreau) 188 

Captains Courageous (Kipling) . . 115 
Captain Singleton (Defoe) .... 53 

Carlyle, Thomas 100 

reading list 117 

quoted 136 

Casa Guidi Windotos (E. B. Brown- 
ing) 98 

Casting Atoay of Mrs. Leeks, etc. 

(Stockton) 249 

Castle of Indolence (Thomson) ... 62 



PAGE 

Cato (Addison) 48 

Cavalier Song (Stedman) 229 

Caxton, William 19 

Celestial Railroad, The (Hawthorne) 199 

Cenci, The (Shelley) 79 

Chambered. Nautilus, The (Holmes) 186 
Charge of the Light Brigade, The 

(Tennyson) 92 

Chaucer, Geoffrey 9, 25 

reading list 14 

quoted US 

Childe Harold (Byron) 77, 78 

Chimes, The (Dickens) 108 

Chita (Hearn) 242 

Choir Invisible, The (Allen) .... 241 

Chosen Feio, A (Stockton) 249 

Christmas Carol, A (Dickens) . . . 10S 
Christmas Slo?*ies (Dickens) .... 108 

Chronicle plays 25 

Circuit Eider, The (Eggleston) . . 256 
Citizen of the World, The (Goldsmith) 58 
Clarissa Harlowe (Richardson) . . 54 
Classical Age in English literature . . 46 

Clemens, Samuel L 254 

reading list 261 

quoted 275 

Cloister and the Hearth, The (Reade) 112 
Closing Scene, The (Read) .... 221 

Cloud, The (Shelley) 79 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor .... 70 

reading list 86 

quoted 132 

Collins, William 62 

reading list 65 

Colonel Carter of Cartersville (Smith) 242 
Colonial period of American literature 145 
Comedy, earliest English ..... 25 
Comedy of Errors, Th.e (Shakespeare) 29 
Commemoration Ode (Lowell) . . . 183 
Compleat Angler, The (Walton) ... 41 

Comus (Milton) 36 

Conciliation with America. (Burke) . 59 
Concord Hymn (Emerson) . . . .169 
Confessions of an Opium Eater (De 

Quincey) 85 

Conquered Banner, The (Ryan) . . . 216 
Conquest of Mexico, The (Prescott) . . 204 
Conquest of Peru, The (Prescott) . . 204 
Conspiracy of Pontiac, The (Parkman) 205 

Cooper, James Fenimore 161 

reading list 166 

Com (Lanier) 239 

Corsair, The (Byron) 77 

Cotter's Saturday Night, The (Burns) 69 
Cotton Boll, The (Timrod) .... 216 
Count Frontenac (Parkman) .... 205 



INDEX 



28l 



PAGE 

Country Doctor, A (Jewett) .... 235 
Country of the Pointed Firs (Jewett) 235 

Courtin\ The (Lowell) 184 

Courtship of Miles Standish, The 

(Longfellow) 174 

Cowpek, William 66 

reading list 86 

quoted 129 

Craddock, Charles Egbert. See Mur- 

free, M. 1ST 242 

Crawford, F. Marion 248 

reading 251 

Cricket on the Hearth, The (Dickens) 108 
Critical Period of American History, 

The (Fiske) 233 

Criticism and Fiction (Howells) . . 246 
Cromwell, Life o/(Carlyle) .... 101 
Crossing the Bar (Tennyson) ... 92 
Cross of Snow, Th e (Longfellow) . .172 
Crown of Wild Olive (Ruskin) . . .104 
Cry of the Children, The (E. B. 

Browning) 90, 98 

Culprit Fay, The (Drake) 160 

Cup, The (Tennyson) 92 

Curse of Kehama, The (Southey) . . 74 

Curtis, George William 226 

reading list 227 

quoted 274 

Oymoeline (Shakespeare) 30 

Danny Deever (Kipling) 115 

Dante, Longfellow's translation of . . 172 

Darkness (Byron ) 78 

David Balfour (Stevenson) .... 114 
David Copperfield (Dickens) . . . 108 

Davis, Eichard Harding 249 

Day, A (Dickinson) 234 

Days (Emerson) 169 

Daifs Work, The (Kipling) .... 114 
Debtor, The (Wilkin s-Freeman) . . 235 
Declaration of Independence, The . 151 
Decline and Fall of the Roman Em- 
pire, The (Gibbon) 61 

De Coverley Papers, The (Addison) . 49 

Deephaven (Jewett) 235 

Deerslayer, The (Cooper) 162 

Defoe, Daniel 52 

reading list 55 

Deliverance, The (Glasgow) .... 243 
De Mandeville, John 13 

reading list 14 

De Quincey, Thomas 85 

reading list . S8 

Deserted Village, TJie (Goldsmith) 58, 59 
Destiny of Man, The (Fiske) .... 232 
Dialect, use in poetry 182, 259 



PAGE 

Diary (Pepys) 44 

Dickens, Charles 107, 110 

reading list 117 

Dickinson, Emily 234 

quoted 276 

Dictionary of the English Language 

(Johnson) 56 

Discourses in America (Arnold) . . 105 
Discovery of America, The (Fiske) . 233 
Divine Tragedy, The (Longfellow) . 174 

Doctor Faustus (Marlowe) 26 

Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Steven- 
son) 114 

Doctor Sevier (Cable) 240 

Don Juan (Byron) 78 

Don Orsino (Crawford) 249 

Drake, Joseph Eodman 160 

Drama, beginning of the English . . 16 
Dramatic Lyrics (R. Browning) . . 95 
Dramatic monologue, nature of ... 96 
Dramatic Romances (R. Browning) 95 

Dream,, The (Byron) 78 

Dream Life (Mitchell) 188 

Dressing the Bride (Aldrich) . . .230 

Drifting (Read) 221 

Drum Taps (Whitman) 222 

Dryden, John 43 

reading list 45 

quoted 126 

Dunciad, The (Pope) 50 

Dusantes, The (Stockton) 249 

Dutch and Quaker Colonies, The 
(Fiske) 233 

Ecclesiastical History (Bede) ... 4 
Ecclesiastical History of New Eng- 
land (Mather) 147, 148 

Edinburgh Review 77, 99 

Edward IT (Marlowe) 26 

Edwards, Jonathan 148 

Eggleston, Edward 255 

reading list 261 

Eight Cousins (Alcott) 202 

Elegy in a Country Churchyard 

(Gray) 63, 64 

Elevator, The (Howells) 246 

Eliot, George Ill 

reading list 118 

quoted 139 

Eliot, John 147 

Elizabethan age 21 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo . . . 167, 199 

reading list 189 

quoted 170, 264 

Emma (Austen) 83 

Endymion (Keats) 80, 81 



282 



INDEX 



PAGE 

English Humorists of Eighteenth Cen- 
tury (Thackeray) 109 

English language, formation of . . . 6, 7 
English Novel, The (Lanier) .... 239 

English Traits (Emerson) 168 

Essay on Criticism (Pope) .... 51 

Essays (Bacon) 31 

Essays (Emerson) 168, 170 

Essays in Criticism (Arnold) . . . 105 

Essays of Elia (Lamb) 84 

Essay on Man (Pope) 51 

Eternal Goodness, The (Whittier) . 179 

Europeans, The (James) 247 

Eutaw Springs (Freneau) 152 

Evangeline (Longfellow) . . . 172, 174 

Evans, Mary Ann Ill 

Evening Post, New York 164 

Eve of St. Agnes, The (Keats) ... 81 

Everyman 18 

Every Man in his Humour (Jonson) . 31 
Excelsior (Longfellow) .... 172, 175 

Excursions (Thoreau) 188 

Expostulation (Whittier) 177 

Fable for Critics, A (Lowell) . . .183 
Faerie Queene, The (Spenser) . . 23, 24 
Farmers Allminax (Shaw) . . . .253 
Father Abraham's Speech (Franklin) 154 
Faust, Taylor's translation of . . . 220 

Federalist, The 152 

Ferdinand and Isabella (Prescott) . 203 

Fiction, Henry James's theory of . . 248 

place in nineteenth century . 106 

Field, Eugene 257 

reading list 261 

Fielding, Henky 54 

Fiske, John 232 

reading list . 236 

Five Nations, The (Kipling) .... 115 
Flight of a Tartar Tribe, The (De 

Quincey) 85 

Flight of Youth, The (Stoddard), quoted 225 

Flute and Violin (Allen) 241 

FooVs Prayer, The (Sill) 233 

Footsteps of Angels (Longfellow) . . 171 
Forest Hymn, A (Bryant) . . . . .165 
Forsaken Merman, The (Arnold) . . 99 
Fors Clavigera (Euskin) . . . . . 104 
Four Georges, The (Thackeray) . . .109 
Framley Parsonage (Trollope) . . .113 
Franklin, Benjamin 152 

reading list 155 

quoted 262 

Fredericksburg (Aldrich) 231 

Frederick the Great (Carlyle) . . .101 
Freedom of the Will, The (Edwards) . 148 



PAGE 

Freeman, Edward A 105 

Freeman, Mary "Wilktns 235 

French Revolution, The (Carlyle) . . 101 

Freneau, Philip 152 

reading list 155 

Fringed Gentian, The (Bryant) . . 164 
From the Easy Chair (Curtis) . . .226 
Frondes Agrestes (Euskin) . . . .104 
Furness, Horace Howard .... 250 

Gallegher (Davis) 250 

Gertrude of Wyoming (Campbell) . . 81 

Gibbon, Edward 61 

Glasgow, Ellen 242 

Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan 

(Hearn) 242 

Gold Bug, The (Poe) 213 

Golden Legend, The (Longfellow) . . 174 

Goldsmith, Oliver 57 

reading list 64 

quoted 127 

Goldsmith, Life of (Irving) . . 158,159 
Gorbuduc (Sackville and Norton) . . 25 
Grace Abounding (Bunyan) .... 38 
Grandfather's Chair (Hawthorne) . 198 
Grandissimes, The (Cable) .... 240 

Grant, Ulysses S 256 

Gray, Thomas 63 

reading list 65 

quoted 130 

Great Carbuncle, The (Hawthorne) . 199 
Great Stone Face, The (Hawthorne) . 199 

Green. James Richard 105 

Green River (Bryant) 164 

Gulliver's Travels (Swift) 47 

Guy Rivers (Simms) 210 

Hale, Edward Everett 231 

reading list 236 

Half Century of Conflict (Parkman) . 205 

Halleck, Fitz-Greene 160 

quoted 262 

Hamilton, Alexander 152 

Hamlet (Shakespeare) 30 

Harris, Joel Chandler 240 

reading list 243 

Hart, Albert Bushnell 233 

Harte, Francis Bret 253 

reading list 261 

Haunted Palace, The (Poe) . . . .215 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel 195 

reading list 207 

quoted 271 

Hay, John 256 

Hayne, Paul H 216 



INDEX 



283 



PAGE 

Hazard of New Fortunes, A (How- 
ells) 247 

Hearn, Lafcadio 242 

Heart of Midlothian (Scott). ... 82 
Heathen Chinee, The (Harte) ... 254 

Henry, Patrick 150 

Henry Esmond (Thackeray) . . . .110 

Herbert, George 39 

quoted 125 

Heroes and Hero-Worship (Carlyle) . 101 

Herrick, Eobert 40 

reading list 44 

quoted 125 

Hesperides (Herrick) 40 

Hiawatha (Longfellow) . . . 172, 174 
•History of England (Macaulay) . . .100 
History of English People (Green) . 105 
History of the Navy (Cooper) . . . 162 
History of New England ( Winthrop) . 146 
History of the People of the United 

States (McMaster) 250 

History of Plymouth (Bradford) . .146 
History of United States (Bancroft) . 203 

Hohenlinden (Campbell) 82 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell 185 

reading list 190 

quoted 270 

Honey-Bee, The (Freneau) .... 152 
Hoosier School Boy, The (Eggleston) . 256 
Hoosier School Master, The (Eggle- 
ston) 256 

Horatius (Macaulay) 100 

House of the Seven Gables, The 

(Hawthorne) 197, 199 

Howard, Henry 22 

Howells, William Dean 245 

reading list 251 

quoted 276 

How Old Brown Took Harper's Ferry 

(Stedman) 229 

Huckleberry Finn (Clemens) . . . 255 

Hudibras (Butler) 42 

Humble Romance, A (Wilkins-Free- 

man) 235 

Hume, David 61 

Humphrey Clinker (Smollett) ... 54 
Hymn to the Pillory (Defoe) .... 52 

Ilypatia (Kingsley) 113 

Hyperion (Keats) 80 

Ichabod (Whittier) 178, 194 

Idea of God (Fiske) 232 

Idylls of the King, The (Tennyson) . 92 
Iliad, Pope's translation of .... 50 

II Penseroso (Milton) 36 

In Black and White (Kipling) . . . 115 



PAGE 

Indian Bible (Eliot) 147 

Indian Summer Reverie (Lowell) . . 183 
Indoor Studies (Burroughs) .... 245 
Inland Voyage, An (Stevenson) . . 113 
In Memoriam (Tennyson) . . .92, 94 
Innocents Abroad (Clemens) .... 255 

In Ole Virginia (Page) 241 

In the Tennessee Mountains (Mur- 

free) 242 

Irish Melodies (Moore) 81 

Irving, Washington 156 

reading 166 

Italian Journeys (Howells) .... 246 
Ivanhoe (Scott) 82 

James, Henry 247 

reading 251 

Jane Eyre (Bronte) 106, 107 

Jefferson, Thomas 151 

Jerome (Wilkins-Freeman) .... 235 
Jesuits in North America (Parkman) 205 

Jewett, Sarah Orne 235 

Jew of Malta (Marlowe) . . . . 26, 27 
John Gilpin' 1 s Ride (Cowper) ... 66 
John of Barneveld (Motley) .... 206 

Johnson, age of 56 

Johnson, Samuel 56 

reading list 64 

quoted 129 

Jonson, Ben 31 

reading list 33 

quoted 122 

Jo's Boys (Alcott) 202 

Joseph Andrews (Fielding) .... 54 

Journal to Stella (Swift) 48 

Julius Cmsar (Shakespeare) .... 30 
Jumping Frog, The (Clemens) . . . 255 
Jungle Book, The (Kipling) .... 114 

Keats, John .80 

reading list 88 

quoted 135 

Kenihcorth (Scott) 82 

Kentucky Cardinal, A (Allen) . . .241 

Kidnapped (Stevenson) 114 

Kim (Kipling) 115 

King Henry IV (Shakespeare) ... 30 
King Henry V (Shakespeare) ... 30 
King Henry VI (Shakespeare) ... 29 
King John and the Bishop .... 16 
King Lear (Shakespeare) ..... 30 

Kingsley, Charles 113 

Kipling, Eudyard 115 

reading list 118 

Knee-Deep in June (Eiley) .... 259 



284 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Knickerbocker Magazine 156 

Knickerbocker School of writers . . . 156 
Knickerbocker 's History of New 

York (Irving) 157,159 

Kubla Khan (Coleridge) 71 

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (Keats) . 81 
Lady of Lyons, The (Litton) . . .106 
Lady of Shalott, The (Tennyson) . 91, 92 
Lady of the Aroostook, The (Howells) 247 

Lady of the Lake (Scott) 76 

Lady or the Tiger, The (Stockton) . 249 

Lalla Rookh (Moore) 81 

V Allegro (Milton) 36 

Lamb, Charles 83 

reading list 88 

quoted 133 

Lanier, Sidney 237 

reading list 243 

Lars, a Pastoral of Norway (Taylor) 220 

La Salle (Parkman) 205 

Last Chronicle of Bar set (Trollope) . 113 
Last Days of Pompeii, The (Lytton) 106 

Last Leaf, The (Holmes) 185 

Last of the Mohicans, The (Cooper) . 162 

Laus Deo ! (Whittier) 178 

Lay of the Last Minstrel, The (Scott) 76 
Lays of Ancient Rome (Macaulay) . . 100 
Leather-Stocking Tales, The (Cooper) 

162, 163 
Leaves of Grass (Whitman) .... 222 
Lectures on Shakespeare (Coleridge) 72 
Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The 

(Irving) 157, 159 

Legends of the Province House 

(Hawthorne) 199 

Lesson of the Master^ The (James) . 248 
Letter to a Noble Lord (Burke) . . 60 
Library of American Literature . . 230 

Life (Sill),' quoted 234 

Life on the Mississippi (Clemens) . . 255 
Life's Handicap (Kipling) .... 115 
Lines to a Waterfowl (Bryant) . . . 164 

Literary Essays (Lowell) 184 

Little Book of Profitable Tales (Field) 25S 
Little Book of Western Verse (Field) . 258 

Little Boy Blue (Field) 258 

Little Dorrit (Dickens) . . . . . .108 

Little Giffen (Ticknor) 216 

Little Men (Alcott) 202 

Little Orphant Annie (Riley) . . . 259 

Little Women (Alcott) 202 

Lives of the English Poets (Johnson) 56, 57 
Local color, in the short story . . 239, 254 

Locksley Hall (Tennyson) 91 

Locusts and Wild Honey (Burroughs) 245 



PAGE 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth . . 170 

reading list 189 

quoted 265 

Lost Arts, The (Phillips) 195 

Love's Labour's Lost (Shakespeare) . 29 
Love Songs of Childhood (Field) . . 258 

Lowell, James Russell 180 

reading list 190 

quoted 267 

Luck of Roaring Camp, The (Harte) 254 

Lucrece (Shakespeare) 29 

Lycidas (Milton) 36 

Lyrical Ballads 72, 74 

Lytton, Edward Bulwer 106 

Macaulay, Thomas Babington . . 99 
reading 117 

Macbeth (Shakespeare) 30 

McMaster, John Bach 250 

Madame Delphine (Cable) . . . .240 

Magnalia (Mather) 147 

Magnolia Cemetery (Timrod) . . . 216 
Maine Woods, The (Thoreau) . . .188 
Malory, Sir Thomas 19 

reading 20 

Mandalay (Kipling) 115 

Man Without a Country, The (Hale) . 231 
Marble Faun, The (Hawthorne). 198, 199 
Marco Bozzaris (Halleck) ..... 160 

Marjorie Daw (Aldrich) 231 

Marlowe, Christopher 25 

reading list 32 

quoted 118 

Marmion (Scott) 76 

Marshes of Glynn, The (Lanier) . . 239 
Masque of Judgment (Moody) . . .260 
Massachusetts to Virginia (Whittier) 177 
Master of Ballantrae (Stevenson) . . 114 

Mather, Cotton 147 

Maud (Tennyson) 92, 94 

May Queen, The (Tennyson) ... 91 

Mazeppa (Byron) 78 

M. en and Women (R. Browning) . . 95 
Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare) . 30 

Merman, The (Arnold) 99 

Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare) 30 

Middlemarch (Eliot) Ill 

Middle states, early writers of . . . 218 
recent writers of . . . 244 
Midsummer Night's Dream, A 

(Shakespeare) 29 

Miles Siandish, The Courtship of 

(Longfellow) 170 

Miller, Joaquin 257 

quoted 275 

Mill on the Floss, The (Eliot) . . . H 



INDEX 



285 



PAGE 

Milton, John 34 

reading list 44 

quoted 124 

Minister's Wooing, The (Stowe) . . 201 
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, The 

(Scott) 76 

Mitchell, Donald G- 1S8 

Modem Instance, A (Howells) . . . 247 
Modem Painters (Ruskin) . . 103, 104 

Moll Flanders (Defoe) 53 

Montcalm and Wolfe (Parkman) . . 205 

Moody, William Vaughn 260 

Moore, Thomas 81 

Morality Plays 18 

Mormons, The (Browne) 252 

Morte D' Arthur (Malory) 19 

Morte D' Arthur (Tennyson) .... 91 
Mosses from an Old Manse (Haw- 
thorne) 197, 199 

Motley, John Lothrop 205 

reading list 207 

Mouse Trap, The (Howells) .... 246 

Mr. Isaacs (Crawford) 249 

Munera Pulveris t^Ruskin) .... 104 
Murder as a Fine Art (De Quincey) . 85 
Murders in the Rue Morgue, The 

(Poe) 213 

Murfree, Mary N 242 

My Garden Acquaintance (Lowell) . 184 
My Last Duchess (R. Browning) . . 96 

My Lost Youth (Stoddard) 170 

Mystery Plays ... 17 

My Study Windows (Lowell) . . . 1S4 
21 y Summer in a Garden (Warner) . 232 

Narrative and Critical History of 
United States (Winsor) . . . .233 

National Airs (Moore) 81 

Nature (Emerson) 168 

Nature and Elements of Poetry 

(Stedman) 229 

Neighborly Poems (Riley) 258 

Nelson, Life of (Southey) 74 

Never Too Late to Mend (Reade) . .113 
Newcomes, The (Thackeray) .... 110 
New England Nun, A (Wilkins-Free- 

man) 235 

New England poets 167 

New England, recent writers of . . . 22S 
New England Weather (Clemens) . . 255 
Nicholas Nickleby (Dickens) . . . 10S 
Night Sketches (Hawthorne) . . . . 199 
Night Thoughts (Young) ..... 52 
Nights with Uncle Remus (Harris) . . 240 

Noble Numbers (Herrick) 40 

Norman Conquest, The (Freeman) . . 105 



PAGE 

Norman-French language 6 

literature 9 

Northern Farmer (Tennyson) ... 94 

Ode (Collins), quoted 63 

Ode on a Grecian Urn (Keats) . . SI 
Ode on Duke of Wellington (Tenny- 
son) 92, 94 

Oft in the Stilly Night (Moore) ... SI 
Old Apple Dealer (Hawthorne) . . .199 

Old Creole Days (Cable) 240 

Old Fashioned Roses (Riley) .... 258 

Old Ironsides (Holmes) 185 

Old Stcimmin' Hole (Riley) .... 258 

Oldtoicn Folks (Stowe) 201 

Old Virginia and Her NeigJibors 

(Fiske) 233 

Oliver Twist (Dickens) 108 

One Word- More (R. Browning) . . . 98 
On Highland Superstitions (Collins) . 63 
Orations and Addresses (Curtis) . . 226 
Orator}-, importance of in Revolution- 
ary period 150 

Othello (Shakespeare) 30 

Otis, James 150 

Our Old Home (Hawthorne) .... 198 

Page, Thomas Nelson 241 

reading list 243 

Pamela (Richardson) 54 

Pan in Wall Street (Stedman) . . . 229 
Paracelsus (R. Browning) .... 94 
Paradise Lost (Milton) ... 4, 36, 37 
Paradise Regained (Milton) ... 36 
Paraphrase of Scriptures (Caedmon) 4 

Parkman, Francis 204 

reading list 207 

Partisan, The (Simms) 210 

Passions, The (Collins) 63 

Past, The (Bryant) 165 

Pathfinder, The (Cooper) 162 

Paul Revere's Ride (Longfellow) . . 174 

Peg Woffington (Reade) 113 

Pendennis (Thackeray) 110 

Pepys, Samuel 44 

Percy, Thomas 66 

Personal Memoirs (Grant) .... 256 
Philip the Second, Reign o/(Prescott) 203 

Phillips, Wendell 195 

Pickwick Papers (Dickens) . . 107, 108 
Pictures from Appledore (Lowell) . 183 
Pike County Ballads (Hay) .... 256 
Pilgrim's Progress, The (Bunyan) 38, 39 

Pilot, The (Cooper) 162 

Pioneers, The (Cooper) 162 



286 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Pioneers of France in the New World 

(Parkman) 205 

Pit and the Pendulum, The (Poe) . 213 
Plain Language from Truthful 

James (Harte) 254 

Plain Tales from the Hills (Kipling) 115 
Planting of the Apple Tree, The 

(Bryant) 164 

Pleasures of Hope, The (Campbell) . 81 
Poe, Edgar Allan 211 

reading list 217 

Poems Here at Home (Riley) . . . 258 
Poems of the Orient (Taylor) . . . 220 
Poet at the Breakfast Table, The 

(Holmes) 185, 186 

Poetical Sketches (Blake) .... 67 

Poetry, Lanier's theory of 239 

Poe's theory of 215 

Poets of America (Stedman) . . . 229 
Poor Richard' 's Almanac (Franklin) 154 
Pope, Alexander 50 

reading list 55 

quoted 51, 128 

Portrait of a Lady, The (James) . . 247 

Prceterita (Ruskin) 104 

Prairie, The (Cooper) 162 

Precaution (Cooper) 161 

Prescott, William II 203 

reading 207 

Present Crisis, The (Lowell) . . .182 
Pride and Prejudice (Austen) ... 83 
Princess, The (Tennyson) ... 91, 94 
Princess Cassimissima, The (James) 247 
Printing, introduced into England . . 19 
Prisoner of Chillon, The (Byron) . . 78 
Professor at the Breakfast Table, The 

(Holmes) ..." 186 

Prometheus Unbound (Shelley) ... 79 
Prophet of the Great Smoky Moun- 
tains', The (Murfree) 242 

Prue and L (Curtis) .227 

Psalm of Life, The (Longfellow) . . 175 
Puritan age, in English literature . . 34 
Purloined Letter, The (Poe) . . . .213 

Quarterly Review, The 80, 91 

Quentin Durward (Scott) 82 

Rabbi Ben Ezra (R. Browning) . . 97 
Raggedy Man, The (Riley) .... 259 
Rainy Bay, The (Longfellow) . 172, 175 
Ralph Royster Boyster (ITdall) ... 25 

Rambler, The (Johnson) 56 

Rape of the Lock, The (Pope) ... 51 

Rasselas (Johnson) 56 

Raven, The (Poe) 215 



PAGE 

Read, Thomas Buchanan 220 

Reade, Charles 112 

Recessional, The (Kipling) . . . .115 

Red Rock (Page) 241 

Red Rover, The (Cooper) 162 

Reflections on the Revolution in 

France (Burke) 60 

Reformation, effect of in England . . 21 
Reign of Law, The (Allen) . . . .241 
Reign of Philip the Second (Prescott) 204 
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry 

(Percy) 66 

Renaissance, effect of on English litera- 
ture 21 

Reply to Llayne (Webster) . . 193, 194 
Representative Men (Emerson) . . . 168 
Restoration, effect on English literature 42 
Reveries of a Bachelor (Mitchell) . .188 
Revival of Learning, effect of on English 

literature 21 

Revolutionary period, in American litera- 
ture 150 

Rhodora, The (Emerson) 169 

Richard ///(Shakespeare) .... 29 

Richardson, Samuel 53 

Richelieu (Lytton) 106 

Riley, James Whitcomb 258 

reading list 261 

quoted 277 

Ring and the Book, The (R. Browning) 95 
Rip Van Winkle (Irving) . 157, 159, 160 
Rise of Silas Lapham, The (Howells) . 247 
Rise of the Butch Republic, The 

(Motley) 206 

Rivals, The (Sheridan) 59 

Robinson Crusoe (Defoe) 53 

Roderick Random (Smollett) ... 54 
Romantic Movement in English liter- 
ature 62, 66, 81 

Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) . . 29 

Romola (Eliot) Ill 

Roxy (Eggleston) 256 

Rudder Grange (Stockton) . . . . 249 
Runaway Boy, The (Riley) .... 259 

Ruskin, John 102 

reading list 117 

quoted 139 

Ryan, Abram Joseph 216 

quoted 274 

Samson Agovistes (Milton) .... 36 
Sands at Seventy (Whitman) .... 222 

Sant Ilario (Crawford) 249 

Saracinesca (Crawford) 249 

Sartor Resartus (Carlyle) . . . 101, 102 
Saul (R. Browning) 97 



INDEX 



287 



PAGE 

Saxon Chronicle, The 5 

Scarlet Letter, The (Hawthorne) 

146, 197, 199 
Scenes of Clerical Life (Eliot) . . .111 
School for Scandal, The (Sheridan) . 59 
Science of English Verse (Lanier) . . 239 

Scott, Walter, poetry 74 

novels S2 

reading list 87 

quoted 134 

Seasons, The (Thomson) 62 

Second Book of Verse (Field). . . .258 
Sense and Sensibility (Austen) ... 83 
Sentimental Journey (Sterne) ... 54 
Sesame and Lilies (Ruskin) .... 104 
Seven Lamps of Architecture (Ruskin) 103 

Seven Seas, The (Kipling) 115 

Seventh-of-Mareh Speech (Webster) 

178, 193 

Shakespeare, William 27 

reading list 32 

quoted 120 

Shakespeare Once More (Lowell) . . 1S4 

Sharps and Flats (Field) 257 

Shaw, Henry W 253 

quoted 272 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe 79 

reading list 87 

quoted 134 

Shepherd's Calendar, Tlie (Spenser) . 23 
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley ... 59 

reading list 65 

Sheridan's Ride (Read) 221 

She Stoops to Conquer (Goldsmith) . 5S 
Short stories, in American literature . 259 

Siege of Corinth (Byron) 77 

Signs and Seasons (Burroughs) . . 245 

Silas Mar ner (Eliot) 112 

Silent Woman, The (Jonson) ... 31 

Sill, Edward Rowland 233 

quoted 234, 274 

Simms, William Gilmore 210 

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry 

God (Edwards) 14S 

Sir Charles Grandison (Richardson) . 54 
Skeleton in Armor, Tlie (Longfellow) . 174 
Sketch-Book, The (Irving) . . . 157, 159 
Sleeping Car, The (Howells) . . .246 

Smith, F. Hopkinson 242 

Smith, John 145 

Smollett, Tobias 54 

Snow-Bound (Whittier) .... 177, 179 
Snow Image, The (Hawthorne) . . . 199 
Sohrab and Rustum (Arnold) ... 99 
Song of the Camp, The (Taylor) . . 220 
Song of the Shirt, The (Hood) ... 90 



page 
Songs of Experience (Blake) .... 67 
Songs of Lnnocence (Blake) .... 67 
Songs of Nature (Burroughs) . . . .245 
Songs of the Desert (Miller) .... 257 
Songs of the Sierras (Miller) .... 257 
Songs of the S unkind s (Miller) . . . 257 
Sonnet, first used in English literature . 22 

Sonnets (Shakespeare) 29 

Sonnets from the Portuguese (E. B. 

Browning) 98 

Sordello (R. Browning) 94 

Southern literature, early writers . . 209 
recent writers . . 237 

Southey, Robert 74 

Specimens of English Dramatic 

Poets (Lamb) 84 

Spectator, The (Addison) . . . . 49, 50 
Spenser, Edmund 22 

reading list 32 

quoted 118 

Spenserian stanza 24, 62 

Spy, The (Cooper) 162 

Squirrel Inn, The (Stockton) ... 249 
Stanzas Written in his Library 

(Southey) 74 

Stedman, Edmund Clarence . . . 228 

reading list 235 

Steele, Richard 49 

Stevenson, Robert Louis 113 

reading list 118 

Stockton. Frank R 249 

reading list 251 

Stoddard, Richard H 225 

quoted 275 

Stones of Venice (Ruskin) .... 103 
Story of a Bad Boy, The (Aldrich) . 231 
Story of Kennett, The (Taylor) . . .220 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher 200 

reading list 207 

Sumrnons to the North (Whittier) . . 177 

Sumner, Charles 195 

Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line (Lowell) 182 

Surrey, Earl of 22 

Suspiria de Profundis (De Quincey) S5 
Symphony, The (Lanier) 239 

Tale of a Tub 47 

Tale of Two Cities, A (Dickens) . . 10S 
Tales from Shakespeare (Lamb) . . 84 
Tales of a Traveler (Irving) . . . 159 

Talisman, The (Scott) 82 

Tamburhiine (Marlowe) 26 

Taming of the Shreto (Shakespeare) . 30 

Tarn O" Shanter (Burns) 69 

Task, The (Cowper) 67 

Tatter, Tlie (Steele) 49, 50 



288 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Taylor, Bayard 218 

reading list 227 

quoted 271 

Tears, Idle Tears (Tennyson) ... 94 
Tell- Tale Heart, The {Toe) . . . . 213 
Tempest, The (Shakespeare) .... 30 

Temple, The (Herbert) 40 

Tennyson, Alfred 91 

reading list 116 

quoted 140 

Thackeray, William M 109 

reading list 118 

quoted 136 

Thanatopsis (Bryant) .... 163, 165 
Their Wedding Journey (Howells) . 247 

Thomson, James . 62 

reading list 65 

Thoreau, Henry D 187 

reading list 190 

quoted 273 

Throstle, The (Tennyson), quoted . . 93 

Thyrsis (Arnold) 99 

Ticknor, Frank 216 

Timrod, Henry 216 

quoted 272 

Tintern Abbey (Wordsworth) ... 72 
Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare) . . 29 

To a Skylark (Shelley) 79, 80 

To Evening (Collins) 62 

Tom Jones (Fielding) 54 

Tom. Sawyer (Clemens) 255 

To Night (Shelley) SO 

Tome's Miscellany 22 

Toussaint I? Ouverture (Phillips) . . 195. 
Traffics and Discoveries (Kipling) . 114 

Tragedy, earliest English 25 

Transit of Civilization, The (Eggle- 

ston) 256 

Traveller, The (Goldsmith) . . .58, 59 
Travels toith a Donkey (Stevenson) . 113 
Treasure Island (Stevenson) .... 113 
Tristram Shandy (Sterne) .... 54 
Troilus and Cressida (Chaucer) . . 10 

Trollope, Anthony 113 

True Grandeur of Nations, The 

(Sumner) 195 

True Relation (Smith) .... 145, 146 

True Relation of Mrs. Veal, The 
(Defoe) .......... 53 

Twain, Mark. See Clemens .... 254 

Twice Told Tales (Hawthorne) . 196, 199 
Two Admirals, The (Cooper) . . .162 
Two Little Confederates (Page) . . 241 

Ulysses (Tennyson) 91 

Uncle Remus (Harris) 240 



PAGE 

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Stowe) . . . .201 
United Netherlands, History of (Mot- 
ley) "... 206 

Unto This Last (Ruskin) ... 90, 104 

Van Bibber and Others (Davis) . . 250 
Vanity Fair (Thackeray) . . . 109, 110 
Variorum Shakespeare (Furness) . 250 

Venetian Life (Howells) 246 

Venus and Adonis (Shakespeare) . . 29 
Vicar of Wakefield, The (Gold- 
smith) 58, 59 

Victorian Anthology (Stedman) . . 230 
Victorian Era in English literature . . 90 
Victorian Poets (Stedman) .... 229 

Viexos Afoot (Taylor) 219 

Village Blacksmith, The (Longfellow) 172 
Virginians, The (Thackeray) . . .110 
Virginibus Puerisque (Stevenson) . 113 

Virtue (Herbert), quoted 40 

Vision of Sir Launfal, The (Lowell) . 183 
Voice of the People, The (Glasgow) . 243 
Voices of the Night (Longfellow) . .172 

Volpone (Jonson) 31 

Voyages and Travels (De Mandeville) 13 

Wake-Robin (Burroughs) 245 

Walden (Thoreau) 187 

Walking Delegate, A (Kipling) . . . 114 

Walton, Izaak 41 

reading list 45 

quoted 122 

Watt Whitman (Burroughs) .... 245 
Wanted — A Man (Stoddard) . . . .229 
Ward, Artemtjs. See Browne, C. F. . 252 

Warden, The (Trollope) 113 

Warner, Charles Dudley .... 231 

reading list 236 

quoted 272 

Washington, Life of (Irving) .... 158 

Waverley (Scott) 82 

Way to Wealth, The (Franklin) ... 154 

Webster, Daniel 193, 199 

reading list 207 

Week on Concord and Merrimac 

(Thoreau) 188 

Western literature, rise of 252 

Westminster Review, The .... Ill 

Westward Ho ! (Kingsley) 113 

West Wind, The (Shelley) ..... 79 
What Mr. Robinson Thinks (Lowell) . 182 
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard 

Bloom 'd (Whitman), quoted . . .223 
When the Sultan goes to Ispahan 
(Aldrich) 230 



INDEX 



289 



PAGE 

Whispers of Heavenly Death (Whit- 
man) 224 

Whitman, Walt 221 

reading list 227 

quoted 271 

Whittier, John Gkeenleaf .... 175 

reading list 189 

quoted 267 

Wiclif, John 13 

Widsith 3 

Wild Honeysuckle (Freneau) .... 152 

Wilkins-Freeman, Mary E 235 

Wing and Wing (Cooper) 162 

Winsor, Justin 233 

Winter's Tale, A (Shakespeare) ... 30 

Winter Sunshine (Burroughs) . . . 245 

Wonder-Book, The (Hawthorne) 198, 199 



PAGE 

Wonders of the Invisible World 

(Mather) 148 

Wordsworth, William 72 

reading list 86 

quoted 73, 132 

Wreck of the Hesperus, The (Long- 
fellow) 172, 174 

Wyatt, Thomas 22 

Wynken, Blynken and Nod (Field) . 258 

Year's Life, A (Lowell) 181 

Yellow Violet, The (Whittier) . . .164 
Ye Mariners of England (Campbell) . 82 

Yemassee, The (Simms) 210 

Young, Edward 52 

Zoroaster (Crawford) 249 



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